


Dark Hearts

by sifshadowheart



Category: Hannibal (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Dark Harry, Dark Will, F/M, Food is People, Hannibal is Hannibal, M/M, Multi, Murder Husbands, The Author Regrets Nothing, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-06 22:39:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12827619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sifshadowheart/pseuds/sifshadowheart
Summary: Sometimes a road branches unexpectedly.  For the Wizarding World, every now and again a dimension will go down a different path with interesting and unexpected results.In a world where the International Statute of Secrecy was never enacted, this plays out in a future where you can get a shot of charisma in your coffee - brought to you by advanced "science" instead of magic.For Harry Potter, this means a life where Tom Riddle was a psychopathic serial killer and cult leader rather than a terrorist, and gives him a unique look into the psychopathic mind, a look that lands him a job with the Behavioral Science Unit.





	1. Setting the Scene

** Dark Hearts **

**A Harry Potter/Hannibal Crossover**

**_By Sif Shadowheart_ **

Disclaimer:  Harry Potter and its characters are the property of JK Rowling while the Hannibal tv series belongs to…whoever it belongs to.  I’m just borrowing a few things for entertainment, etc.

_“I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.”_  
― [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1938.Friedrich_Nietzsche), [Thus Spoke Zarathustra](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/196327)

 

**Prologue: Setting the Scene**

_International Confederation of Wizards; Bonn, Germany; June 1 st, 1688_

“…if things continue the Muggles will destroy us!”  The statesman from the New World colony of Salem rebutted, rising to his feet and decrying one of the more… _pacifistic_ statesman among them from Tibet.  “As things are the aggression against witchcraft and wizardry have never been higher thanks to the like of the Puritans and the Lutherans!  Killing their own as they try and destroy something they cannot and _will not_ ever understand!”

The statesman sat down as the Confederation devolved into a roar as the company fought against each other, all witnessed by their Supreme Mugwump in his first year at the head of the confederation.

He was a new appointment, a sop to the warlocks of Lichtenstein after they refused to join following Pierre Bonachord’s original appointment as the first Supreme Mugwump.

One of those proud and fierce warlocks sat at the new Mugwump’s side and gave a heavy sigh.

He was Grand Warlock Henrich Bonn, and had only concede to accompany the Mugwump as they were friends and colleagues of many years…and more than that, he was truly looking forward to watching this pumped up flock of popinjays get their comeuppance at the hands of a wizard that they _never_ should have allowed power if they had wished – as many did from their own arguments over the last hours – to maintain the status quo.

Potters were many things, including the highest of the high among wizarding nobility thanks to their being a family prone to either a single, _powerful_ son or several powerful daughters who tended to marry cannily and well.

His friend was one such powerful son: Hereweald Antioch Potter, Lord of the Noble House of Potter, and through his family connections one of the direct heirs of the House of Peverell, and of Gryffindor and of Slytherin among others.

The Potters kept it quiet of course, they weren’t braying upstarts such as the Malfoys were seen in England despite having long connections in France.

But it was true all the same – if one only took the time to _look_.

Henrich knew what course his friend was set upon – it was only a matter of letting the others present spin themselves around and tie themselves into so many metaphorical knots that his clean, precise plan will seem like a gift from the gods to bless lesser wizards.

He sat back as his friend stood, shooting him a smirk from a well-formed, aristocratic mouth, and prepared to watch the show.

“My fellow wizards.”  Hereweald’s smooth, well-tutored tones instantly soothed and quieted the raucous politicians, all turning their heads to stare up at him and sitting back – or down in the case of the most vigorously arguing – and giving him their utmost attention.  “The days of simply hiding are gone.  In Europe especially,” he waved an elegant hand towards the European delegation.  “Where wand-use is so prevalent, our people are on the brink.  And while, yes,” he nodded towards his Salem-born fellow.  “The aggression shown is troubling, we _do_ yet have options.”  Hereweald laid his hands down flat on the podium before him.  “Muggles have begun to advance, this is true.  To adopt ideas of culture and society and _science_ that before were beyond them.”  He flashed a smile.  “They are beginning to truly _evolve_ , and thus present a unique opportunity if we were to grasp it: evolving along with them, in plain sight.”

“Integration.”  One of the Japanese delegates murmured, many of the Asians present smiling – a bit smugly.  After all, integration was _their_ method.  Though many of them gathered that their Supreme Mugwump meant more than to simply _stop hiding_ as the European sheep had done for so long.

“After a fashion.”  Herewealed nodded.  “Yes.  More importantly…taking the _reins_ of this changing world instead of cowering in the shadows.  What I propose is simple: we come out from the shadows not as _magical_.”  He smirked.  “But as _technological_.”

A bright hum of conversation broke out at that, and at his back Henrich gave a mellow chuckle.

He’d been right, after all.

Hereweald Potter was many things, but among them all was an agent of _change_.

“What if the Muggle governments object or try to destroy us anyway?”  One of the French wizards asked, shrewdly.  “What you are proposing won’t be possible without some form of state endorsement?”

Hereweald arched an unimpressed brow.

“Are you a wizard or aren’t you?”  His look turned dark.  “This isn’t a discussion of trying to bilk a helpless Muggle – this is the survival of our race without persecution, pandering, or destruction.  If the Muggle governments do not wish to play along, we will _make them_.”

…

_Excerpt from Bathilda Bagshot’s A History of Magic:_

_“The International Confederation of 1688 heralded a new age of wizardry: that of hiding in plain sight.  Rather than sneak away into the dark shadows and hide all that magical kind are, we stepped out into the light: not as magical, but as scientific.  Advanced thinkers and inventors who were willing to help their fellow man.  It is also the first and last instance of wide-spread and sanctioned use of the Imperious Curse.  Governments and people all over the world were bespelled to accept this truth and look no further._

_Several new policies grew from the Scientific Integration Act, chief among them the outlawing of wand-use except in private homes, Europe in particular having to adapt to Eastern schools of magic which instead used rings as magical conduits or having to train in wandless magic._

_It was a dangerous time, but out of it grew a world where technology and magic became integrated, and muggle science is as much a part of our world as our magic is of theirs, giving our children the opportunity to seek employment and opportunity in the muggle world, without the fear of discovery._

_Second came an understanding of genetics, allowing what was once a dwindling people and populace to experience a resurgence, magical people now at last able to recognize that muggle humanity could and did serve a valuable purpose in the magical genetic code, allowing for fresh blood to help alleviate problems of breeding that had begun to take hold in some bastions of magical people._

_It was by no means, a perfect solution._

_But it was a solution that_ worked _nonetheless…”_

…

_MI-7 Headquarters; London, England; 2013_

“Agent Potter, welcome.”  Kingsley Shacklebolt smiled at one of his best – and brightest – proteges.

There was worry about Harry Potter in many circles, especially after the… _unfortunate_ and unethical experiment that the now-incarcerated Albus Dumbledore had run with the Potter scion.

Granted, any many scientific minds among their community were all-but frothing at the mouth to read Albus’s body of work on what was now being called the Riddle-Potter experiment, but it was the _cost_ of the experiment that sat poorly with the rest of their world.

So many deaths.

So much wasted time and talent and blood.

And for what?

To see – for once and for all – if a psychopath was created by nature or nurture?

Harry Potter (as he was born but then later adopted by his exonerated godfather Sirius Black) and Tom Riddle shared as close a genetic sequencing as possible outside of identical twins, it was true.  They were from different branches of old lines, they even looked the same.  But in his greed to prove a hypothesis, Albus had overlooked serious _flaws_ in his experimental controls.

Harry hadn’t been orphaned at birth – but at fifteen months.

Both had been raised in abusive environments, it was true, thanks to Albus’s own abuse of his position in society.

But, after being reintroduced to magical society, Harry _hadn’t_ been returned to the so-called “care” of his unlamented relatives, but given into the custody of his godmother, Alice Longbottom which in time was shared with Lord Black once he was exonerated of participation in the Potter murders.

And so on, and so forth.

However, what had the academics quivering for the day Harry Potter died – that being the magically binding agreement between Albus and Harry regarding publication of Albus’s study of Harry – was the connection between the two: a magical connection created the day Thomas Riddle orphaned young Harry Potter, that was later discovered to be the most foul of magics – a horcrux.

Harry lived, and spent all his youth until he was eighteen either as hunter or hunted in a deadly game of, well, _tag_ , with Tom Riddle, the serial killer known as Voldemort who for a time had command of an elite group of other psychopaths in the United Kingdom, all “omegas” to his “alpha”.

Voldemort didn’t die the day he orphaned Harry Potter – but he was weakened, and spent many years researching what had gone so very _wrong_ the night he attempted to become the last true heir of the Peverell and Slytherin lines.  His cohort still would terrorize Britain yearly, but all in all, it was a quiet decade.  And then Harry Potter returned, and Tom stepped out of the shadows once more.

It was a tale as if from a children’s story.

Good and evil.

The just prince and the wicked villain, all overseen by a corrupt vizier.

Still, while Kingsley abhorred what life had done to Harry Potter-Black, he couldn’t deny that it had given him his best man.

Harry – thanks to his connection with Tom – had had an _insight_ to the killer that had proven vital in finally ending him.

The young man had done it, and then gone on to college, all while still consulting with MI-7 and Kingsley in particular to help catch the remainder of Tom’s cohort the “Death Eaters.”

They were all gone now.

Either ashes and dust like their leader or locked away in Azkaban.

All that remained from those decades of terror being the hidden study of Albus Dumbledore, and the scars – both literal and figurative – on the man before him.

A man, interesting enough, that if not for the actions of his ancestor, wouldn’t about to be put to the question Kingsley had for him.

A question that could very well change his life.

“Director Shacklebolt.”  Harry smiled at his mentor.  After the true depth of Albus’s betrayal had come to light, Harry hadn’t thought he would truly _trust_ anyone ever again.

Padfoot and Moony aside, however his trust in his godfathers had everything to do with his understanding of them and their motivations and little to do with needing to have any sort of _faith_ in their characters.

Kingsley had slowly – but surely – proven him wrong.

“Now.”  Kingsley said after tea was dispensed and some of his wife’s wonderful cookies had been shared with his best insight into the killer’s mind.

Which was rather the problem.

Harry could _understand_ a killer the way few others could.

Kingsley’s wife Sharon – a mind-healer – had proposed that perhaps he had a form of empathy that helped, rather than it being a strict result of his connection with Tom Riddle, but Harry had been tested, as all young children were upon entering their training at a “advanced school of technology” aka Hogwarts for any above-and-beyond magical gifts that would need honing to seem as the work of education or technology to their non-magical cousins.

Agent Potter’s advanced understanding had almost nothing to do with magic – as Kingsley understood it – and everything to do with the actions of Tom Riddle haunting his thoughts and steps for over a decade.

That Harry was alive and not Tom was nothing short of proof that he did indeed _know_ how a psychopath operated.

“Harry,” Kingsley broached the subject of his summons to the boss’s office.  “Have you given any thought what you would like to do now that Bellatrix has been apprehended?”

Bellatrix LeStrange had been the last – and worst – of the Death Eaters caught.

Well, _caught_ was a bit misleading.

Put-down might be a better description.

As an MI-7 Agent Harry Potter had helped track over three dozen witches and wizards – and even a muggle or two – who had bought into Tom Riddle’s dogma.

Less than a dozen were currently in custody, the rest dying in the course of their apprehension or of other causes before being found by Harry’s task force, which had since been disbanded and all the members of which reassigned…except Harry.

It was a situation that had raised a few… _troubling_ rumors among the public.

Rumors that Kingsley thought he’d come up with a way to squash…with some help from an old friend.

Harry sighed, as aware of where this conversation was going as Kingsley, and shook his head.

“Well.”  Kingsley set aside his teacup and picked up a folder from his desk, holding it out to Harry.  “I might just have an idea about that.  An old friend of mine named Jack Crawford has been given the approval for a task force not unlike the one you lead against the Death Eaters.”

“The Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI.”  Harry noted, green eyes lighting with interest beginning to peruse the folder with increasing interest.  “I’ve heard of it.  Misters Crawford and Graham have written some interesting articles – and Mr. Graham several books – on the psychopathic or criminal mind.”

“Yes.”  Kingsley smiled softly, enjoying seeing Harry with a… _spark_ again.  Since his fiancé left him several years ago, sparking rumors regarding Harry’s… _methods_ , finding real _life_ in Harry was often moments few and far between, other than when playing with his young god-sister Romina "Rom-not-Mina" Celeste Black.  “At the moment Mr. Graham teaches only for the FBI Academy, he’s considered too unstable for the field.”

“As I understand it.”  Harry pursed his lips a bit as he flicked through the pages of the folio, quickly assimilating the gist of the information.  “Will Graham for all his unique ability to _see_ into the minds and motivations of others is closer on the personality disorder spectrum to autism and Asperger’s than sociopathy.  Not the _best_ cocktail for a field operative.”

“No,” Kingsley sighed.  “No, it’s not.  A rare time when _less_ emotion would be a boon over more.  And with the closure of the Death Eater files, you’re rather under-utilized here, Harry.”

The implication laying between them being that _Harry_ was closer to sociopathy than either man was comfortable admitting.

Harry had been spiritedly vilified in the papers over the years, called everything from a sinner to a saint and all the grey in between, though lately it seemed – thanks to the aforementioned former-fiancé – they preferred adjectives along the lines of “cold”, “distant”, and even “dangerous.”

Mad, had also been bandied about more than seemed reasonable or even organic in nature.

Hell, it seemed, had no fury like a Hermione Granger scorned.

“Cards on the table, Kings.”  Harry sighed, sitting back in the armchair and closing the file.  “You want me to go to the States?  Help this BSU team?”

“Jack could use your insight.”  Kingsley told him evenly, not trying to snow him – it wouldn’t work and would just be a waste of time – but not getting into the underlying _worry_ that plagued him over what might happen if Harry remained in Britain.  “And you could use some… _distance_ from our community here.”  Kingsley held up a hand, silencing whatever objection was sure to come in response.  “You do, Harry.  Other places, especially America, don’t have as strong of a wizarding culture underlying the muggle.  Our people have had the hardest time – historically – staying integrated but under the radar at the same time.”

“Hogwarts doesn’t help that.”  Harry pointed out with no-little exasperation.  A point that he’d made over and over and over again to the upper echelons of MI-7 and the offices at 62442 Downing Street.  “It creates a sense of both isolation and superiority that are counterproductive to full integration.”

It was an argument that had been made by Potter men and their political allies for centuries now.

And yet the anachronistic educational facility still stands, even if to the public as a boarding school for “elite and gifted students.”

“Be that as it may.”  Kingsley sighed, pinching his nose.  “Britain remains one of the few places with an actual wizarding-type society that holds itself at arms-length from our non-magical cousins.  You, however it came about, were raised in a non-magical household and excelled in non-magical schooling until you were brought into the… _secret_ as it were.  Of all the help I could offer Jack, you’re the best bet for not sending up any red flags.  You also would benefit from the lessened scrutiny you would face in the States.  Just.”  Kingsley sighed.  “Just think about it, will you?”

“When do you need an answer by?”  Harry asked, taking that as a cue to rise and holding onto his folder turning for the door.

“A week.”  Kingsley told him.  “Jack and I will both need time to clear the paperwork and your status as an agent-on-loan from MI-5.”

Harry nodded, mind working furiously, and wandered away to the Apparation point to pop home.

He wouldn’t need the week.

If he was honest, he didn’t need a day.

They both knew he was going to take the offer – if to get away from the _expectations_ of the magical underbelly of British nobility if nothing else.

 _They_ hadn’t approved of Hermione, though now in hindsight many of them would have preferred her or anyone magical over his seemingly unending bachelorhood.

Harry might play at being an agent, but he was also so much more than that.

If only on paper.

Siri oversaw his seat in the House of Lords, Remy watched over the board at Potter International.

His godfathers helped him… _maintain_ and manage his profile in Britain.

It would be… _refreshing_ to live in a place where he wasn’t constantly under a microscope…at least one not of his own making.

The sort of crimes that units like the BSU investigate tended to bring the limelight and microscopes along with them…but that could also be managed.

And at least they wouldn’t have his ex-fiancé’s poisonous words to put on the second page every other day.

 


	2. Aperitif

** Dark Hearts **

**A/N:**   Parts of dialogue and such come straight from the Hannibal season 1 episode 1.  This will trail off as I go more non-canon, but for now you might see some repeating.

 _“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”  
― _ [Mary Oliver](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23988.Mary_Oliver)

**_Chapter One: Aperitif_ **

After explaining to his godfathers – and more importantly Rom – about the move to being an agent-on-loan to the FBI, Harry thought the hard part was over.

At least, compared to the tantrum Rom threw, everything else should be easy – right?

Harry, however, had never had to try and locate and purchase property in the greater Washington D.C. area…and living out of a hotel was _not_ his idea of a good time, even if the Westin was rather nice.

Hedwig also disapproved after he’d freed her from quarantine.

All in all, it was a good thing money was no issue, since he had to look about an hour’s commute away from Quanitco to find something that he liked.

The house was large – larger than he really needed – but it came on several acres of land in the Alexandria area, enough land that he couldn’t quite _see_ his neighbors, a luxury after growing up in Little Whinging and living in a London townhouse with his godfathers.  Instead, it reminded him with its old-world charm of the hunting cabin the Longbottoms had in Scotland, where he would go and visit Neville during the summer.  “Old World” was fitting, with the stone-work and butler’s pantry but also deceptive given the massive game room and media lounge the second floor contained and the pool in the back.

It was a refuge – a place he’d chosen all on his own, and furnished just the same to be comfortable and an escape from the dark hearts he was shortly to be charged with hunting down.

It was a refuge he’d needed…given that his death toll had only continued to _climb_ after he’d put Tom in the ground at last.

The three-car garage with workshop became home to the custom Aston Martin Vanquish in smoke-silver and his BMW motorcycle; with the workshop divided between maintenance tools (Siri’s influence), his beekeeping and candling supplies, and gardening materials.

His _aunt_ Petunia may have been a heinous bitch, but at least he’d had pride in his gardening…even if she took all of the credit for his work.

The candling a by-product of him simply enjoying beekeeping after Hermione had gone off on a rant regarding the decline of pollinators and insisting on _doing something_.

Waste-not.

Against all odds, he likewise didn’t utterly despise cooking…though he quickly employed a local couple to come out and maintain the house and grounds, do the shopping, and such tedious things that he likely would only have sporadic time for once Jack Crawford finished bringing him on board.

He carried the Old-World theme of the architecture into the interior, using a lot of stone and wood and lush, comfortable fabrics.  Copper pots and pans hung from a black-powder coated rack over the kitchen island, bronze fixtures in every room, and bright pops of color against the soft crème rugs and furnishings.  The crest of House Potter hung with pride against the foyer wall, and the Peverell crest – also known as the mark of the Hallows – was etched discretely into the carved wooden headboard in the master bedroom.

Harry was finally at home...

Which meant, naturally, that a rather gruesome string of murders in Minnesota came calling to roust him out of his newly-claimed comfort against the world.

…

“I don’t quite know what you’re asking me, Jack.”  Dr. Alana Bloom said in exasperation as the head of the BSU walked with her across the Georgetown campus.

The dogged Special Agent in Charge had been waiting – as if in ambush – for her with barely-held patience after her last class.

“But this _better_ not be about Will Graham.”  She finished with a warning glare at the tall African-American man.

She respected Jack Crawford, worked with him often on profiles of killers and cases, but when it came to accepting opinions that were contrary to his own end-goals he could be worse than anyone she’d ever met – including more than one of her patients.

“It’s not, it’s not.”  Jack held up a placating hand, adding a mental _not yet_.  “Scout’s honor.”

“I doubt you were _ever_ a Boy Scout, Jack.”  Alana rolled her eyes a bit as they entered her office, flipping on the light and setting down her briefcase in it’s place before settling comfortably into her desk chair, Jack taking the seat usually filled by undergrad and grad students visiting in supplication for help on this or that.  And in some cases trying to make a far-too-obvious move on who they often called “Dr. Dish” behind her back.  “So, what couldn’t wait until our appointment later this week to go over your newest case and work on a profile?”

“A friend of mine from England has, well, _gifted_ me with his serial killer tracking wunderkind.”  Jack sighed, rubbing one hand over his pant like restlessly.  “The U.S. has more serial killers per capita than the U.K. – almost five times as many.  Kingsley felt that with the wrap-up of the Death Eater trials that his protégé would be better utilized here.  The problem is…”

“You’re talking about Harry Potter.”  Alana breathed, eyes wide and a thrum of excitement sparking in her veins.  “Dumbledore’s litmus test for nature v. nurture.”

“Yeah.”  Jack let out a gusty breath.  “That would be the one.  So you understand my concern.”

“Not only is he an unknown to your team.”  Alana rattled off coolly.  “But there’s also been a lot of press – and more impartial, psychological circle speculation – that he may very well be a psychopath himself…or at the very least a sociopath.”

“That would be the main problem, yes.”  Jack groused.  “He’s a, a _savant_ with tracking serial killers, maybe even better than Will for all that their styles – from what Kingsley shared – are vastly different.  Highly intelligent, excellent instincts…and with a body count higher than most veteran agents put together.”

“You’re afraid that he’s a different kind of monster.”  Alana noted, intrigued.  “One that hunts his own kind rather than… _easier_ prey.”

“Afraid, no.”  Jack grimaced.  “If that’s all he is, then considering the type of killer my team tracks and apprehends I don’t really have a problem with it.  My concern is that he might be _more_.  Might not be satisfied with _just_ hunting the hunters.”

“You want a profile on him.”

“Not just a profile.”  Jack corrected.  “I want him analyzed to see if he’s stable for field work, and under ongoing observation to see if he’s going to snap and take out anyone or everyone around him.”

Alana frowned.  That was problematic.  Not that she wasn’t capable.  But that she would be expected to _work_ with him, befriend him, all the while keeping tabs on his sanity.

It was a similar situation to Will…and the reason they had an agreement that any information she gleaned on him would only be published posthumously, much like the one Harry Potter reportedly had with the deeply unethical Albus Dumbledore.

“If he’s as intelligent as reported, there’s no way I’d be able to manage it without him knowing.”  Alana said after a long moment.  “My suggestion?  Make it a condition of his employment and use an outside psychiatrist to manage his care.  If he’s anything like Will, making it me or one of the other members of the FBI stable of shrinks will only aggrieve him.”

“Well then, doctor.”  Jack arched a brow.  “Who would you suggest?”

…

Hannibal studied Franklyn inscrutably as the neurotic man sobbed in his patient chair.

If the man were to look up, he would see nothing other than an indecipherable mask of blank politeness, which given Franklyn’s many neuroses would be spun either into seething intolerance or gentle caring…depending on the day and how entertained Hannibal would be by the former.

All the while Hannibal would vividly imagine exquisite filet he could create from the flesh of Franklyn’s back…the rest of him likely too fatty to bother with, perhaps even his organs, though his lungs might be worth something given the _pitch_ Franklyn’s incessant squeals could reach when he was truly overwrought.

Fortunately for Franklyn’s existence, he wasn’t rude, merely intolerable, and also far too close to Hannibal for him to risk undoing his life’s work by giving into temptation.

Still, when after Hannibal offered the box of tissues and the _oozing_ man left a crumpled mucus and tears laden spot of _filth_ on Hannibal’s elegant side table, the fantasy _did_ appeal.

Another time perhaps, many years in the future once Franklyn had moved onto another therapist after forming an unhealthy attachment on Hannibal and whoever was likely to come after him.

Not Alana or Bedelia, however.

He enjoyed them both far too much to inflict Franklyn on them.

“I hate being this neurotic.”  Franklyn sobbed, wiping at his nose and eyes with the soft tissues in Dr. Lecter’s office.  Dr. Lecter always had the softest tissues, the most comfortable – and perfectly matched to his office’s bold and immaculate décor – chairs.

He was the epitome of Old World good taste…and Franklyn for all his neuroses wanted nothing more than to absorb some of the handsome doctor’s glory, like the moon reflecting the sun…if he were a poetic man anyway.

However, he was not, and the best he could put to his feelings regarding the patrician, aristocratic Dr. Lecter were a combination of awe and envy.

“If you were not neurotic, Franklyn.”  Hannibal told him, bored before the man arrived for his appointment, though not a drop showed in his crisply accented speech that was flavored with his native Lithuania.  “You would be something much worse.  Our brains are designed to experience anxiety in short bursts, not the prolonged foamy layers of distress your neuroses seem to enjoy.  It’s why you feel there is a lion on the verge of devouring you.”

Hannibal cast one last perturbed glance at the soggy tissue on his hand-selected side table.

“You have to convince yourself the lion is not in the room.”  Hannibal leaned forward as Franklyn visibly gathered himself.  “When it is, I assure you, you will know it.”

Hannibal flicked a glance at the clock behind Franklyn and set his leather-bound journal aside, rising, Franklyn obediently echoing the wordless prompt and allowed himself to be escorted to the office door.

Both men found themselves taken aback – though one showed it much more than the other – when upon Hannibal’s opening of the doors, they caught sight of the tall form of an African American man in a mid-grade suit awaiting them.

“Doctor Lecter?”  Jack asks, eyeing the pair and assuming – at first – that the slightly rotund form was the psychiatrist, until Hannibal corrected him.

“I hate to be discourteous, but this is a private exit for my patients.”  Hannibal scolded the man that he had already placed as SAC Jack Crawford.

“I am Special Agent Jack Crawford,” Jack showed his badge, wincing a bit at the cold reception to his intrusion.  “With the FBI.  May I come in?”

Hannibal held in a derisive snort that would not do to voice, then dismissed Franklyn.

“I will see you next week, Franklyn.”  Then arched a brow at the boorish FBI agent.  “Unless, of course, this is about him?”

“Oh, no.”  Jack smiled a bit, humor ripe in his voice as the smaller man scuttled – and really there was no other way to describe it – away.  “This is all about you, Dr. Lecter.”

A flat smile was all that he got for that, then Hannibal repeated his request for Jack to wait, shutting the door without waiting in turn for Jack’s acceptance.

…

Jack eyed the waiting room, even as he gave a bit of a silent sigh at the posturing.

Alana had warned him that Dr. Lecter could be very Old-World, a true gentleman, and most importantly that he was known to disdain poor manners.

Poor manners such as barging into his office uninvited and inflicting himself – however unwittingly – on one of Dr. Lecter’s patients.

Still, it couldn’t be helped.

He needed the peace of mind – and more importantly a letter signing off on Potter’s field-readiness to appease his superiors – that Dr. Lecter’s assistance could provide.

Though given how valuable Harry’s – and possibly Will’s – assistance could be in the field, he had zero intention of following Alana’s advice and making the arrangement he sought in anyway official.

Off the books would have to be enough, they both were just too damn _good_ to waste away in teaching positions or as simple consultants.

Jack didn’t understand how either of them operated – which was a secondary reason to have Dr. Lecter on his side.

If Alana wouldn’t help him get some insight of his own into the pair of prodigies, perhaps Dr. Lecter would be a bit less… _conventional_ in his ethics.

“Please,” Hannibal opened the door to his office to the FBI agent after he’d made him said a suitable amount of punitive time for his uncouth transgression.  “Come in.”

If the waiting room was upper-crust, the office with its specious room, soaring ceiling and windows, and interesting crimson/grey color scheme was a result of elite breeding and a love of culture from the fine art collection throughout the room – including several of the doctor’s own works – to the second-floor book collection ala Sir John Soane.

Impressive, and Jack wasn’t a man easily impressed.

If anything, it gave him a bit of comfort – though he knew that wasn’t the purpose of the room – in Alana’s reference.

Hannibal followed Jack into the vast room, plans and contingencies clicking at high-speed through his mind, even as he appreciated the agent’s visible appreciation of his space.  It was, Hannibal felt, genuine.  More importantly, it contained _knowing_ of the styles and art that surrounded him.

This wasn’t a man who pretended culture where it was lacking in himself, but enjoyed it where he witnessed it.

“May I ask how this is all about me?”

“You may ask,” Jack told him genially.  “But first I need to ask you a few questions of my own.”  The drawings caught his eye again, and he moved closer to inspect them.  “Are you expecting another patient?”

“We’re all alone.”  Which was dangerous – to both of them.

Jack arched a brow, turning his attention from paper and ink for a split second.

“No secretary?”

Hannibal titled his head a bit, in a manner he knew was disarming.

“She was predisposed to romantic whims.”  Hannibal gave a half-smile.  “Followed her heart to the United Kingdom.  I was sad to see her go.”

Jack nodded, then gestured back to the drawings.  “Are these yours, doctor.”

Hannibal nodded, pointing to one in particular.

“Among the firsts.”  The render of a Parisian school was immaculate.  “My boarding school in Paris when I was a boy.”

His words garnered an impressed lifting of dark brows.

“That’s an incredible amount of detail.”

Reaching over elegantly to his desk top, Hannibal plucked up both pencil and scalpel, cutting a fine point and then blowing away the shavings with a puff of breath, holding it up for Jack’s illumination.

“I learned quite early that a scalpel cuts a finer point than a simple sharpener, Agent Crawford.”

The pencil was set aside, even as the scalpel was palmed and kept ready, Hannibal’s eyes drifting towards a steady jugular covered in cocoa skin.

“Huh,” Jack mused, as if to himself – though it never was, merely another non-sequitur to pry more information out of the good doctor before getting to the point of his impromptu visit.  “I begin to understand how your drawing landed you an internship at Johns Hopkins.”

Hannibal gave a mental hiss at that.

Research.

That was a bit of information that while not hidden was neither widely known either.

And things such as _research_ almost always resulted in ends being left dangerously _loose_.

“I begin to suspect you are investigating me, Agent Crawford.”  Hannibal raised a cool brow, heart rate steady and firm.  Not a single physiological signifier available to gave truth to his inner perturb.

Jack smiled.

“You were referred to me by Dr. Alana Bloom with the Georgetown psychology department.”

The tension that coiled in his muscles loosened – just a bit – at that.

“Most psychology departments are filled with those either containing too much personality or too little.”  Hannibal smirked, just a bit, as Jack’s eyes flashed with humor at the jibe.  “Dr. Bloom would be the exception.”

“You mentored her during her residency at Johns Hopkins?”

Hannibal gave a small smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes as the two of them continued their dance of advance-retreat through his office.

“I learned as much from her as she did from me.”

“That’s good to hear.”  Jack finally took a seat, allowing Hannibal to do the same behind his desk facing the SAC.  “Since she has – cordially – refused the charge I would like to now put to you.”

“Indeed?”  Hannibal arched a brow.  “Dr. Bloom is considered the leading expert in the FBI’s stable of psychiatrists I understand, I can’t imagine what case would have her balk.”

“Not a case.”  Jack sighed, Hannibal’s eyes flashing with interest.  “More along the lines of a psychological profile and continued – but discrete – monitoring.”

“Of whom?”

Oh yes, he was glad he’d been patient.

He’d been idle, nearly filled with ennui as he kept his hunting quiet and his art to paper and pencil rather than his… _preferred_ medium.

This would perhaps be the best of remedies.

“One, perhaps two men working with the FBI and the Behavioral Science Unit.”  Jack reached into his jacket and plucked out the manila envelope that had the stats for both Potter and Graham, as well as Dr. Lecter’s contract.  “Graham I am still waiting for approval to pull out of his classroom – if only part time.  Potter on the other hand.”  Jack passed over the envelope, allowing Hannibal to peruse it while he spoke.  “Has been officially seconded to us from MI-5 and is in the process of passing routine physical evaluations, weapons certification and licensing to carry, and so on.”  Jack waved that off.  “As part of his employment with the FBI I would like to add a stipulation for some… _non-formal_ psychiatric care and evaluation.”

Hannibal hummed a bit, tapping one finger on his desk top.  No other tell gave away his inner glee.  Harry Potter, there wasn’t a person alive who hadn’t heard of the agent.

More importantly – and interesting to Hannibal…

“Harry Potter is rumored to be a sociopath.”

“Those rumors have never been substantiated.”  Jack sighed.

“Which is why you need a profile on him, and ongoing evaluation.”  Hannibal shot a sardonic look at the SAC.  “I can see where this would irk Dr. Bloom.”

“Yes, as they will be co-workers at some point she has refused to have anything to do with his profile.”  Jack said bluntly.  “And her friendship with Will Graham presents a similar obstacle.  Potter is a foregone conclusion in the field – I simply need some background on how best to manage him and a warning if he starts to…”

“Accelerate?”  Hannibal suggested when it seemed Crawford found himself at a loss for words.

“Go from a borderline vigilante into full-blown psychosis.”  Jack clenched his jaw a moment.  He hated the idea of having not one but two loose cannons on his team.  But the value gained in ability to save lives outweighed any of his personal quailing over the risks.

“When a law enforcement agent kills a dangerous criminal it is lauded, when a criminal kills a civilian it is disdained.”  Hannibal observed.  “You wish to ascertain whether he is one or the other and keep him from crossing that invisible and ever-shifting moral line.”

“Yes.”

“And your Mr. Graham?”

“No official diagnoses has ever been done on Will Graham.”  Jack supplied.

“Something your two savants have in common.”

“Yes.”  Jack sighed.  “Both of them have faced psychiatric evaluation to enter the field: Potter passed, Graham failed but was approved to teach.  Any insights to how their minds actually work however…”

“I imagine.”  Hannibal noted, tapping one finger against the files Jack had provided.  “That Dr. Bloom has likewise refused to countenance a study of her friend.”

“Again, yes to my frustration.”  Jack leaned forward.  “If we could understand _how_ Potter and Graham know the things they know, see the things they see, it would usher in a whole new era of criminal investigation.  Make the world a safer place.”

How plebian, Hannibal gave a mental sigh.  And tedious.  Still, he was intrigued by the idea of two unique minds.

Flipping open his fine leather appointment book, Hannibal picked up a fountain pen.

“I have an opening later this week in the evening.  Thursday at seven, for Agent Potter.”

“He’ll be here.”

“And Mr. Graham?”

Jack grimaced.  “I’m afraid he’s even more resistant to psychoanalyses – according to reputation – than Agent Potter.  I have a case I want to get his feet wet with, Potter’s as well.  I’ll start on Will this week while Potter awaits your approval of his state of mind to be in the field.  Then, hopefully an opportunity will arise for an… _innocuous_ meeting between yourself and Mr. Graham.”

“It is not my preferred method.”  Hannibal conceded – or pretended to anyway.  “But, if needs-must, I am not afraid of the unconventional.”

“Glad to have you aboard, Dr. Lecter.”  Jack nodded with a slight smile, the two men shaking hands.

“Indeed, Agent Crawford.”

…

A handsome, haunted man with a soft face and half-dazed eyes sat in the living room of a crime scene.  Multicolored light flashed across his face, lighting up his eyes.  There was no noise as if his ears were blocked, only the thrum of his own heart provides an organic hum.

Arterial spray splashed across a wall near a blood-soaked carpet provided a macabre color to the plainly decorated room.

Through the window the source of light is revealed – police cars and reporters alike sending flash after flash even as a crime-scene photographer takes pictures and a team of coroners remove a pair of bodies.

It was a tableau of horrible violence, and inside it – but separate – sat Will Graham, an island of calm serenity among the carnage on a yoga mat.

With one last glance at the still – and eerie – form, a pair of detectives herd away the crime-scene techs and coroners from the house.

A flicker of Will’s eyes behind his glasses is the only acknowledgement that he was now alone…except for the imprint of the dead and the person who killed them left behind in sprays of blood and fractions of evidence.

Will took a deep breath, exhaled, and lifting his hands removed his glasses, folding and tucking them away in his jacket pocket.

Closing his eyes, he waited breathing steady as his mental pendulum in warm gold swung in the darkness of his mind, keeping rhythm with nothing but his heartbeat.

_Fwum, fwum, fwum._

_One, two, three._

His eyes were closed, but now the pendulum wasn’t contained solely within his mind, but swinging behind him, around him, wiping away in its retreated arc the gush of blood trace on the wall.

_Fwum._

_One._

The pendulum swung on the other side of the window, wiping away police and vulturous reporters alike.

 _Fwum_.

_Two._

Now the pendulum, his mind wiping away all of the scene until just before the crime began, wiped away the stained carpet, lifting away the blood.

_Fwum._

_Three._

A warm-gold arc erases the blood-spatters on the security key pad, and even the dried drops in rust red vanish.

_Fwum._

_One._

The crime is gone, now only the killer remains.

Standing, Will walks with purpose through the door that shows signs of forced entry, his pendulum wiping it away as he walked backwards from the house, closing the door behind him, backing, backing, until he was across the street, paying no mind to the quiet crowd surrounding him.

Because to him, they didn’t exist.

Nothing did.

Nothing save the killer, and the peaceful scene of domesticity that they were about to ruin.

The street was empty.

His pendulum stopped swinging, and Will snaps into focus.

Through the partially-curtained windows of the Marlow house, he can see the still-living silhouettes of Theresa and Thomas Marlow, will watching them for long moments – as the killer had done – taking it in, then walks with purpose for the front door.

In real-time, outside of Will’s mind, he did the same, the crowd of officers and detectives melting out of his way as they watched him work.

Inside his mind – and in real-life – Will marches to the front door and with a single massive kick breaks it in and the security alarm blares.

Thomas Marlow rushes down the stairs, two steps at a time, moving to intercept Will – who in his imagining as the killer raised a towel-wrapped arm that conceals a gun.

Two gunshots.

“I shoot Mr. Marlow twice, severing jugulars and carotids with near surgical precision.  He will die watching me take what is his away from him.  This is my design.”  Will narrated – in his mind alone.

It wouldn’t do to allow others a _peek_ into just how… _differently_ his mind worked.

He had no patience for either shrinks or asylums after all.

Killer-Will turned to see Theresa Marlow frantically trying to push the panic cod into the home security pad.  Without a moment’s pause, he shoots her expertly through the throat, missing her jugular and breaking her neck, the key pad becoming peppered with her blood as she drops to the floor.

“I shoot Mrs. Marlow expertly through the neck.  This is not a fatal wound.  The bullet misses every artery.  She is paralyzed before it leaves her body.  Which doesn’t mean she can’t feel pain.  It just means she can’t _do_ anything about it.  This is my design.”

In his mind, Will finishes punching in “Off” on the alarm code and the blaring alarm is silenced, then the phone rings.

Will picks it up.

“This is DDX Security.  Who am I speaking with?”

He hangs up the mental phone, breaking character to ask: “I need the Incident Report from the Home Security Company.”

One of the officers rushes it over to him.

“This was recorded as a false alarm.”  He looks around the scene.  “There was a false alarm last week…”  He thought a moment.  “He tapped their phone.”

The detective in charge of the scene gave the order for Will’s theory to be checked, then watches as the investigator sank back into his ritualized reimagining of the active crime.

“This is DDT Security.  Who am I speaking with?”

Killer-Will holds his smart phone to the receiver as he watches Theresa Marlow bleed to death, paralyzed by the shot through her neck and unable to utter a single word.

He pressed the play button, and the recording plays:

“Theresa Marlow.”

“Can you please confirm your password for security purposes?”

Killer-Will presses another button.

“Tea kettle.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Marlow.  We detected a front door alarm.”

Another recording.

“Yes, that was me.  That was my fault.  Sorry about that.”

“Is there anyone in the house with you at this time, Mrs. Marlow?”

Another recording.

“I’m just here with my husband.  It’s all good.  We’re good.”

“Do you require any further assistance at this time?”

“No, thank you so much for calling.  Sorry about the false alarm.”

Killer-Will is mixed with real-Will, hanging up the phone and staring down in sympathy at Theresa Marlow.

“And this is where it gets truly horrifying for Mrs. Marlow.”

Will snaps back into reality in his lecture hall at the FBI Academy at Quantico, no longer telling the story from his eidetic memory.

“Everyone has thought about killing someone one way or another.  Be it by your own hands or the hand of God.”

A murmur of uncomfortable – but knowing – laughter runs through the room of FBI trainees.

“Now,” Will prompted them as he leaned back against the front of his desk, slides form the Marlow double murder on the projector screen behind him.  “Think about killing Mrs. Marlow.”

Smokey blue-grey eyes, unhidden behind his glasses surveyed the lecture hall – more to keep up social expectations than out of any desire to make contact.  And his gaze never does, ghosting instead over shoulders and on foreheads or chins.

“Why did she deserve this?  Tell me your design.  Tell me who you are.”

…

As the trainees file out of the room and Will – actively avoiding eye contact and as a result remaining utterly ignorant to the smitten glances tossed his way but male and female trainees alike, half likely due to his handsome looks and half to his reputations as brilliant but wounded – starts shuffling papers together, another person enters, hearing Will’s final admonition.

“The sad, dull truth of these crimes is they can usually be reduced to a male penetrative control issue.  I am expecting a higher level of scrutiny.”

Will looked up, startled to find himself alone with a weathered – but not worn – African American man in a nice, well put-together suit with sharp eyes that brimmed with a cocktail of conviction, intelligence, and pure will.

Jack Crawford, the head of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, who had been nipping at Will’s heels like an ill-mannered pup ever since Will drew the FBI’s attention at the Marlow case…ironically the same that he just finished lecturing on.

Reaching down, Will snatched up his glasses and slid them on as Crawford approached, eyes skittering around the classroom to avoid that piercing stare.

“Mr. Graham.”  Jack said as he approached, watching the small ritual curiously and mentally ticking another box.  “I’m Special Agent in Charge Jack Crawford of the Behavior Sciences Unit.”

Will tilted his head so that his glasses aligned with Jack’s chin – giving the _appearance_ of eye-contact but not the reality of it.

“We’ve met.”

“Yes, we had a disagreement about the museum when we opened it.”

Will snorted softly, turning back to his desk and putting his messenger bag with his class notes together to avoid facing the other man.

“I disagreed with what you named it.”  And Will being Will, hadn’t pulled any punches telling Crawford so – even if at the time he hadn’t been fully aware of the SAC’s _interest_ in Will’s mind.

Jack arched a brow.  “The Evil Minds Research Museum?”

The _what’s wrong with that_ was implied but not needing stated outright.

Will smirked a bit, giving Jack a sideways glance.

“It’s a little hammy, Jack.”

And gives the implication that only _evil_ people commit the kind of crimes that someone like Jack or Will would investigate, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, if one removed the lens of the Industrialized West/North American morality from the picture, _evil_ became a very subjective normative concept to attach to crime at all.

Jack smiled at the direct answer, it was refreshing after spending a couple days battling wits with a pair of psychiatrists like Alana Bloom and Hannibal Lecter.

“You’ve hitched your horse to a teaching post.”  Jack observed, then decided to repay Will’s frankness with a bit of his own.  “I understand it’s not easy for you to be social.”

“It’s talking _at_ them, not to them or with them.”  Will responds absently, his glasses sliding down his nose as he studies the floor rather than Jack, his messenger bag hanging limply at his side but firmly in his grasp.  “Not exactly social.”

Jack moved, quickly – but gently – sliding Will’s glasses back into place, forcing the issue of eye contact if only for a split second.

Just enough to get of glimpse of just why Alana Bloom might be so protective of the man before him – a man who was tall and strong despite his poor posture, an attempt to hide if ever Jack’d seen one, with rough, callused hands used to hard work.

Everything about Will Graham’s body said strength, and his behavior diffidence.

It was an interesting contrast, and one that Jack was already banking on suspects finding disarming and Dr. Lecter fascinating.

“Where do you fall on the spectrum?”  Jack had an idea, he just wanted to see how self-aware Will was.

Smirking a bit even as he strafed out of reach, Will echoed Jack’s syntax and word-choice, becoming the other man if only in voice for a split second.

“My horse is hitched to a post closer to Autism and Asperger’s than narcissists and sociopaths.”

“But you can empathize with narcissists and sociopaths.”  Jack said decisively.  It fit.  And it would be nice to only have _one_ borderline sociopath on the team with Potter.  He didn’t need another in Graham.

Will shrugged, slouching even further as he sidled towards the doorway.

“I can empathize with anybody.  Less to do with my unique cocktail of personality disorders and more with an active imagination.”

Jack smiled, leaning in.

“Can I borrow your imagination?”

…

Will accompanied Jack across Quantico, the SAC filling him in on his plan as they went:

A pair of killer-catching savants (and wasn’t that a coup for the Bureau, nabbing Potter) teamed with forensic science to track and catch the worst of the worst.

Potter apparently was mired in bureaucracy however, leading Jack – if Will had any idea, and he did – to come knocking on the second of the two for help with his latest case.

“Eight girls from eight different Minnesota campuses abducted in the last eight months.”  Jack summed up for him, setting a brisk pace.

Will was familiar with the case – anyone who didn’t live under a rock was.

“I thought there were seven.”

“There were.”

“When was the eighth taken?”  Will asked, as they passed from the Academy to the halls most often frequented by the likes of the BSU and Major Crimes.

Jack sighed, turning to face Will before ushering him into the situation room.

“About three minutes before I entered your classroom.”

Will nodded at that, the escalation of what he’d read of Jack’s timeline making snapping into place.

“I assume you’ve called them abductions because you have no bodies?”  He asked, already studying the seven pictures on the corkboard that aligned with seven blue dots on a map of Minnesota.

The pattern – of the girls at least – already clear as day.

“We have nothing.”  Jack replied in frustration.  There was nothing worse for a forensic scientist than an absolute _lack_ of evidence.  “No bodies. No parts of bodies. Nothing that comes out of a body. We have lonely swabs in used evidence kits.”

Will hummed under his breath a bit, glasses tucked away in his pocket as he cocked his head to study the pictures.

“Then these girls weren’t taken where you _think_ they were taken.”  He said absently, not really giving Jack any attention anymore.  All of his mind engaged in the case.

Jack arched a brow.  Five minutes in and already a new perspective – one that could yield that hard-sought evidence he was lacking.  Whatever grief his superiors were going to give him over Graham and Potter, it was clear to him now that it was worth it.

Alana Bloom’s rant on the other hand…that was a different story.

He hoped she would buy – or at least pretend to – whatever platitudes Jack had to feed her to keep her from kicking up a fuss.

“Where were they taken?”

Will jerked a shoulder.  “I don’t know.  Someplace else.”

Jack moved over to his desk and picked up another picture and a blue dot.

“All abducted on a Friday so they’re not reported missing until Monday. However he’s covering his, tracks he needs the weekend to do it.”  With that he tacked up the picture of the newest abductee, with a corresponding dot on the map.

His newest team member cocked a brow.  “Number eight?”

“Elise Nichols. St. Cloud State on the Mississippi. Disappeared Friday. Supposed to house sit for her parents over the weekend. Feed their cat. Never made it home.”  Jack sat on the edge of his desk, just watching Will think, though there was little movement on his face.

Whatever was going through his mind, unless he spoke it stayed there.

“One through seven are dead, don’t you think? He’s not keeping them around. Got himself a new one.”

“He?”  Jack asked.

Will nodded, humming.  “Statistically, this many girls with this close of a resemblance: very Mall of America, lots of wind-chaffed skin; we’re looking for a male.”

“That’s the preliminary profile.”  Jack agreed.  “At the moment we’re focusing on Elise Nichols.  Though he definitely has a type.  Same hair color. Same eye color. Roughly same age, height, weight. What is it about all these girls?”

Walking over to this pictures, Will shakes his head, flicking a finger at Elise Nichols’ picture.

“It’s not _all_ of them, it’s one of them.”  He corrects, as more and more the picture of his latest killer starts to form behind his eyes.  “He’s like Willy Wonka.  Every girl he takes is a candy bar.  Hidden amongst all those candy bars is the one, true intended victim, which if we follow through on the metaphor, would be your Golden Ticket.”

Jack looks down at his hands in disbelief.

A matter of minutes and Will has figured out a large part of the profile that some of the best minds in Quantico were still trying to hash out.

“Warming up for his Golden Ticket or reliving what he’s done to her?”  He probed.

Will frowned.

“Golden Ticket wouldn’t be the first taken and she wouldn’t be the last. He would hide how special she is. I mean, I would. Wouldn’t you?”

“I’m going to need you to get closer to this.”  Jack decided, not wanting to waste more time waiting on Potter before hauling Will into the field – kicking and screaming if need be.

“You have Heimlich at Harvard and Bloom at Georgetown.”  Will argued – even as he already knew from slipping, even just a bit, into Jack with his empathy that it would be pointless.  “Not to mention Potter.  Being a bit greedy aren’t you Jack?”

“Maybe.”  Jack allowed with a moue of his lips.  “But they can’t think the way you do.  Even Potter has a different methodology, and hasn’t been fully tested outside of the Death Eater taskforce.  You have a specific way of thinking.”

“There been a lot of discussion about the way I think?”  Will asked with more than a little acid in his voice.

“You make jumps we can’t explain.  And they’re rarely wrong.”

“The evidence explains.”  Will waves that off.

Jack leaned forward, a light of victory already shining in his eyes.  “Then help me find some evidence.”

Will sighs, then concedes after a last compassionate glance at eight shining faces.

“That might require me to be social.”

…

While Will and Jack left for Minnesota with the team, Harry and Hannibal were a day behind.

Harry had to have his mental health approved for field work by an FBI approved psychiatrist, and the word of Kingsley or his wife weren’t enough – not here, or maybe just not in Harry’s case, he wasn’t 100% certain, though probables leaned more towards the former with a bit of the latter.

And so it was that on a bright April day in the elegant and stern office of one Dr. Hannibal Lecter, Harry Potter found himself facing off against a new opponent – a possible sociopath, though one that apparently limited himself to cutting into the core people with words rather than scalpels any longer.

How interesting.

It wasn’t anything Hannibal – Dr. Lecter – had done that raised the red-flag in Harry.

Nor was it the _absence_ of something that should be there but wasn’t in Dr. Lecter’s affect.

It was the red wall.

From the position of “patient” Harry – or any other – stared at Dr. Lecter who was haloed, an intentional arrangement he was certain, by a collection of rare books and artifacts, while from Dr. Lecter’s view his patients were surrounded by nothing but bright, arterial red.

Not that Dr. Lecter being a sociopath – or even a psychopath for that matter – would be any kind of shock, given that psychiatry, particularly the more cut-throat research and academia areas of it such as that of Dr. Lecter and Dr. Bloom who also consulted with the FBI, is one of the top fields that those leaning on the narcissistic end of the scale such as sociopaths and psychopaths tend to be drawn to.

One could only hope – given that Dr. Lecter wasn’t behind bars – that any violent urges that came with his possible personality disorder were exercised in a productive manner.

Not that Harry was any better – or even attempting to judge the other man.

Not in the least.

He simply prefers to know what sort of predators he worked with, and being in the field of law enforcement, they were _all_ predators, even – or perhaps especially – profilers like Drs. Lecter and Bloom.

A modern take on the hunt as it were, and even better, one with the nominal approval of prey and sheep alike.

Besides which…without resorting to active Legilimancy, Harry’s couldn’t get a read on the man.

And the _last_ person that happened with turned out to have been grooming Harry as little more than a science project, though Harry thought he preferred Dr. Lecter’s sheen of genteel stoicism over Albus’s twinkle-eyed grandfather routine.

If he managed to escape his initial session with Dr. Lecter – let alone the follow-up monitoring ones that he was already aware Crawford was going to try and enforce – without a paper being written up on him, even shrouded through the lens of “confidentiality” it would be a bloody fucking miracle.

Still, better a trained professional than the voracious press any day of the week.

Lecter himself was an enigma.

Shuttered dark brown eyes with a curious hint of brandy making them almost maroon, ash blond hair and an aristocratic face.

The catch wasn’t in the suit with the superb tailoring and rich fabrics, it was in the body they covered.

He was tall, taller than Harry – whose childhood of neglect and abuse had done his height no favors – by at least half a foot, putting him at least 6’ 3” in contrast to Harry’s average 5’ 9”, with a strong body that was in turns hidden by the concealing layers of shirt-waistcoat-jacket and revealed by the drape of the silk and linen.

Lecter had the hands of a surgeon – his former profession – or an artist, which also was a facet of him.

And a walk that was all coiled strength and obvious grace – trained from birth, not just Old World but _old_ nobility or Harry needed to find a new line of work.

Harry’s observations – rather than being rude – were simply measuring and being returned in kind as they each sat in silence for long moments, taking the measure of each man for friend or foe, predator or prey.

To Hannibal’s eyes, Harry Potter was everything he was purported to be – and also everything he wasn’t, a delightful dichotomy, though that word implied only dual facets to a man that to Hannibal’s trained and intelligent eyes, was more briolette with over seventy facets to the smooth reflection of a cabochon.

He laughed a bit – silently of course – at himself over the dip into whimsy, though with eyes as bright and gleaming as any emerald set into a face that nearly _screamed_ centuries of good breeding – if of a different type and region of Hannibal’s own – it could be forgiven.

Harry Potter, with his fine swimmer’s frame and long fall of black hair, was no sociopath.

What he was, instead, Hannibal couldn’t wait to discover under the layers of ice-cold bone-deep control that misled even a profiler as practiced as Jack Crawford to mislabel him.

That something dark seethed beneath the stiff British reserve was as easy for Hannibal to see as the other man’s intelligence.

More, Hannibal saw something in Harry Potter he hadn’t had in a great many years – even with Agent Crawford’s unrelenting search for the Ripper – a true _challenge_ wrapped in fine leather with the underlying scent of earth and beeswax with a cologne – perhaps a soap – of tobacco and bay _._

Perhaps, in time, even an equal.

Hannibal did so wish to see what kind of art Harry Potter was capable of creating.

“Shall we begin…?”


	3. Folie a Deux

** Dark Hearts **

Author’s Note: As you can probably guess, things are very quickly going A/U and the order of events for season 1 will be all sorts of scrambled, and so on and so forth.

Some more show-direct dialogue in this chapter as our team closes in on the Minnesota Shrike and Hannibal gets to meet the second of his new “friends/informal patients” Will Graham while Will is likewise introduced to Hannibal and Harry.

There’s been a few questions so here are the ages of our trio: Will – 34; Hannibal – his age is never given in the show other than being in his 40s, after a bit of research it seems plausible that he’s about 10 years older than Will at 44; Harry – 28.

**_Edited for continuity: 8-7-18._ **

**Chapter Two: _Folie á deux_**

_“These violent delights have violent ends_

_And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,_

_Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey_

_Is loathsome in his own deliciousness_

_And in the taste confounds the appetite._

_Therefore love moderately. Long love doth so._

_Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.”_

  * _Friar Lawrence to Romeo, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 6_



…

_...”Shall we begin…?”_

Harry arched a brow, the shadow of a smirk crossing his well-sculpted mouth.

“Let’s.”  He decided to play along.  The letter already rested in Dr. Lecter’s hands after all.  He assumed that he would have to satisfy at least a glimmer of the other man’s curiosity before the older gentleman – in the sense of manners and breeding anyway, as something much darker lurked beneath, Harry was certain – would deign to sign it, clearing him for field duty, the last of a tedious list of hoops he had to jump through even though his attentions had been sought and courted by the FBI.

 _Bureaucracy_ was such a dirty word.

Hannibal gave a ghost of a nod and opened his black leather-bound notebook, scribbling a few – harmless – observations.

No, he didn’t think Harry Potter was a sociopath…but what he _was_ should prove to be quite interesting to unearth.

Perhaps he was one such as himself that _knew_ where the lines between sanity and insanity lay and cheerfully skirted them.

Time would tell.

Hannibal could _nearly_ forgive Agent Crawford’s boorish behavior for delivering first Harry and soon enough Will Graham into his life to lift the boredom of the garden-variety manic-depressives and other such dull characters that speckled his patients in puce and grey.

“My charge is to ascertain your readiness to join the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI in the field.”  Hannibal stared over, blank in eye and face, at his strikingly colored visitor.  “Tell me, why do you think that is?”

“Well,” Harry drawled in his best dry-as-a-Snape impression.  “It likely has something to do with the words _Folie á deux_ being bandied about for the last decade by my last boss’s wife.”

“Shared Psychotic Disorder.”  Hannibal arched a brow.  “Found most often in families or spouses.  Why would that interest her, true or otherwise?”

“She was my therapist.”  Harry smirked.  “Only person I could trust not to sell my diagnoses to the press.”

“Ah yes,” Hannibal nodded.  “You’re in fact _Lord_ Potter, are you not?”

“Yes.”  Harry nodded.

“And what disorders did your last psychiatrist diagnose you with?”

“None, officially.”  Harry tilted his head.  “As I imagine you know full well, I rather doubt SAC Crawford neglected to hand over my file when he presented his case for taking over my employer-mandated mental health evaluation.”

“He did.”  Hannibal nodded.  “Speculation from your former superiors, approvals for field-work by your therapist, but nothing firm.  And even if there were…I prefer to make my own determinations Agent Potter.”

“Good thing,” Harry rolled his eyes a bit.  “Kings’ wife was a treat when it came to signing off and vague portents of _feelings_ but less than helpful in dealing with my PTSD.”

Hannibal cocked his head in curiosity.

From what he’d seen of Harry Potter, and what he’d been told, that was a rare – and very unexpected – admission of having a problem of any sort.

It made him wonder what deeper, darker creature prowled behind those emerald eyes – a vigilante as Crawford thought or something worse indeed? – shielded by the pat-diagnoses of a brain suffering trauma it couldn’t quite handle.

“How does that make you feel?”

Harry just arched a brow in a wordless demand of _Really, Dr. Lecter?_

Hannibal nodded, acceding.

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is an understandable side-effect of your efficacy in service to your former employers.”  Hannibal allowed.  “From your file, you have the highest closed case count of your colleagues – but also the highest kill count as well.  You can surely see why SAC Crawford is concerned?  And that is without being privy to suspicions of a serious malady such as _Folie á deux_.  Though I am curious.”  Hannibal’s gaze sharpened.  “Who was your supposed dominant?”

Harry didn’t read like either a psychopath or sociopath to Hannibal – and he would know – leaving him as the subordinate member of a possible shared psychosis not the origin.

The corner of a lush mouth kicked back up.  He was actually _enjoying_ the verbal spar with his new doctor.

“Tom Riddle, actually.”  He told Dr. Lecter drily.  “And possibly Albus Dumbledore as well.  My nemesis – or at least that’s how he styled himself – and my mentor respectively.”

And both of _those_ men’s psychological issues have been well documented – even before Tom’s death at Harry’s hands.

“And why would one think that?”

Harry shrugged.  “Too much alike, Tom and I, that was the point of Albus’s experiment after all.  And no one likes to consider that I might just be cracked all on my lonesome given my _prestige_ in Mother England after all.”

“What would you call your issues, then?”  Hannibal probed, even as he lifted the letter from Crawford and signed it off.

Harry Potter was dangerous – and Hannibal was going to enjoy digging beneath the bone and rearranging a bit of furniture – but more than capable of doing his job if his level of self-awareness was any indicator.

“Oh, the normal for an abused kid raised by wolves and then made a hero of the people.”  Harry snorted.  “A bit of PTSD, some ADHD, possible Oppositional Defiant Order,” no _possible_ about it, that shit was all over and around his mental shields.  Made for excellent Snape-be-Gone when he was learning Occlumency.  “And a dash of Paranoia…for seasoning.”

“Well, Agent Potter.”  Hannibal gave a polite smile as he handed over the rubber-stamped letter.  “I believe that will give us ample room for discussion at your next unofficial appointment.”

“Cheers.”  Harry gave a mock-salute with the letter and rose, keeping pace with the long-legged doctor as he was showed the door.

Something dark was lingering behind those brandy-maroon eyes, and it had only deepened with every word out of Harry’s mouth.  But it wasn’t until he mentioned Tom that they’d turned razor-sharp.  There was a monster in this man.

The only question was if he was the kind Harry liked to… _correct_.

But as Lecter had implied, they would have plenty of time to get a feel for each other’s demons.

Harry found that he could hardly wait.

…

The next day found Harry reviewing case files in the situation room/Jack’s office-away-from-his-office at Quantico.

Finding a body at the home of the latest abductee had confirmed what they already knew – the possible-serial-killer was an _actual_ serial killer.

However, something about Elise Nichols didn’t fit the pattern, a reason why she’d been dropped back in her own bed and tucked in.

From initial notes by the team, Will Graham – the second of two profilers including Harry that Jack had somehow talked the FBI brass into snagging for him – had tagged the situation with the late Ms. Nichols as an “apology” though given little else other than that the serial killer was – to their own mind – gentle, careful with the girls, which didn’t fit the usual M.O. of a serial killer.

“Potter.”  Crawford poked his head back into the room after his latest meeting with Purnell.  He’d wanted to hand-deliver the case-closing savant’s all-clear paperwork himself.  “I want you to sit in on the profiling session with Dr. Lecter and Agent Graham after the meeting with the science team.”

Harry leaned back with a cool smile and a lift of a brow.

“Who’re they profiling?”  He asked with more than a little snark.  “The killer or each other?”

Crawford held in both a snarl and a groan.

Katz and Zeller supplied more than enough snark for one team, and that was before adding in the _delightful_ snapping of Graham.

He wanted to keep his closed-case rating the highest in the Bureau and the good press rolling in.  There was nothing better than getting another psycho off the streets and away from civilians but Jack knew himself well enough to know that the prestige he’d worked so damn hard for could disappear with a single misstep, a misstep that Purnell had made clear she thought was bringing in the _interesting_ Agents Potter and Graham.  Jack wasn’t so certain about that.  He just wished that he didn’t have to deal with the _personalities_ that had more disorders between them than the degrees of the entire team – which was saying something when you added in the science team to the mix.

“Now, Potter.”  Was all he told the black-haired Agent, watching impatiently as the Brit rose to his full five-foot-nine, not short but not too tall either, and sauntered over to where Jack was hovering in the doorway.

“I thought we were meeting here.”

“So did I.”  Jack all-but-grunted.  “Graham’s late so I asked Dr. Bloom to keep Dr. Lecter busy while we hunt down our erstwhile profiler and meet with the science team.”

“Hmm.”  Harry hummed under his breath.

He didn’t know Jack, barely knew _of_ him, but he didn’t track down serial criminals for a living for nothing.

Will Graham had already gotten under Crawford’s skin.

Interesting, that.

The SAC wasn’t shy about making it clear that he in turns loved Harry’s talents and hated his baggage.  With a person as reputedly… _shaky_ as Special Agent Will Graham, he imagined it would be even worse.  What with the red flags in the SA’s file and all…

Harry’s drama at least was only _rumored_ , neither Kings or his wife willing to “sully” their national hero’s good-name with speculation…and run the risk of the Potter lawyers banging down their door as a particularly irritating insect of a reporter had learned the hard way.

Money, and the right breeding, together created a formidable shield for dark leanings, a shield that Graham didn’t possess.

If Harry were to guess, it made the other man easier to manipulate – or guilt – by Jack but also harder to deal with.

Arching a brow, Harry followed the stern figure of Jack out of the office and through the warren of corridors that made up Quantico and the FBI Academy towards Jack’s current quarry: a late and impossible-to-pin-down professor of forensic science and psychology who was supposed to be meeting with them and the science team then with Dr. Lecter later to work on the profile.

Not that Harry could blame the other man for being late.

Harry smelled an ambush of the psychoanalytic sort, the type that he himself _wished_ he could avoid as well as Will Graham purportedly did.

Indeed, Harry would wager that if it weren’t for Jack Crawford being obstinate and Will a savior-complex, the professor would _still_ be avoiding psychiatrists at all cost.

But if the other man wanted to be in the field, Dr. Lecter was the gatekeeper, as Harry well knew.

Though Harry had an inkling that SAC Crawford was angling more towards an “unofficial” – read, able to be disclosed to Jack – relationship between Lecter and Graham instead of the rigidly imposed visit outlined by Harry’s contract with the FBI to sign off on Harry’s ability to be in the field…and ensure the powers that be in the Bureau that they weren’t setting a wolf loose amongst their sheep.

Dr. Lecter was _not_ Harry’s psychiatrist, it had to be said, and Harry wasn’t being _forced_ in any way to continue to see him.

However, Harry had insisted on a binding non-disclosure agreement with the doctor anyway.

If Graham was half as intelligent as his published body of work implied, then the professor would be wise to do the same.

Jack launched himself through the halls towards Graham’s classroom with all the unstoppable force of a schooner at full-wind, Harry nearly trotting to keep up with the (barely) taller man’s long-legged stride.  Holding in a sigh when a form – likely that of Jack’s target – took one look at the on-coming storm and ducked into the nearest bathroom with a choked-off breath of panic and bloodshot eyes, Harry gave a trainee a shake of his head and pointed him towards the nearest bathroom rather than subject the poor creature to Jack Crawford in high dudgeon.  Bad enough that he had to deal with it, even second hand.

It was no wonder Graham had beelined towards the nearest sink and dunked his head at the sight of Jack.

Tenacious – yes, Jack was that.

But compassionate?

Not even close, not even with witnesses or family members or victims.

He could _pretend_ , Harry would bet, otherwise his file had to be as chock-full of reprimands as Harry’s was pseudo-scientific analyses of his “disorders” that never quite stuck.

Harry propped his shoulder in the door frame, in view but removed, and watched as Jack went after his newest profiler with all the grace and understanding of a stallion in high rut.

Though Harry couldn’t deny, watching the simmering temper and heartbreaking vulnerability that warred in Will Graham’s eyes, that the _view_ was second to none even if the setting left much to be desired.

He snorted at Will’s answer to Jack’s demanding question.

Urinal cake, indeed.

…

Will was seriously reconsidering his life choices as he submerged his face in cold tap water.

If it hadn’t been for his Grandmeré Marie being so insistent on this being “the right path” for him after being both stabbed and shot during his stint with the New Orleans police department, the visions and nightmares he’d been subjected to after just _one_ crime scene with Jack Crawford’s BSU would have him packing up his pack of strays and high-tailing it back to the bayous he called home.

His father may have drug him up and down the eastern seaboard and the Mississippi, but Grandmeré’s Louisiana home had always been open to her seeing-too-much grandson.

A tiny bright light of stability in the middle of a swamp, with the sound of snakes and mosquitos to sing him to sleep, it was the one good thing he had other than his dogs that had never been contaminated by what he saw when he _looked_.

It was to no real surprise, that just as he was lifting his head from the water, balanced a bit from just remembering that he was Will Graham, grandson of Marie Bellerose, and that the things in the dark should fear _him_ for he can find them no matter their masks, that Jack arrived with a bang and a shout to disrupt the tenuous peace he’d managed to cobble together.

Though, interesting enough, Jack hadn’t come alone as another joined them in the bathroom after Jack had scattered the trainees and Will had snarked off at the SAC.

Jack gave a heavy sigh and nodded towards Will in a “this is _him_ ” gesture that Will had been seeing all this life.

“Do you trust my judgement, Will?”  Jack asked.

His companion leaned one – strong even through the shielding suit – shoulder against the tile wall, crossing his arms over his chest.

Just there to observe then, Will decided.

Fantastic.

Will just shrugged in answer.  “I stopped working in the field for a _reason_ , Jack.”

Jack shrugged that off.

It didn’t matter to him in the bigger scheme of things.

All he could hope for was that his new dynamic duo of profilers managed to somehow steady each other – and if they couldn’t then Dr. Lecter would do it for them.

“We have a better chance of catching this guy if you’re in the saddle, Will.”

Will braced his hands on the porcelain sink and bowed his head.

“I’m in the saddle. Just confused which direction I’m pointing.”  He more muttered than said, head lifting to pin Jack with his stare – though his eyes actually never made contact with Jack’s.  “I don’t know this kind of psychopath. Never read about him. I don’t even know if he’s a psychopath. He’s not insensitive. He’s not shallow.”

“Not all of them are.”  Harry commented, shoving off the wall as Will focused on him – for real and not in passing – for the first time.  “In my experience it’s rarer than most would like to admit that a killer of any kind fits neatly into the boxes society wants so dearly to shove them in.  Psychopath, sociopath.”  He shrugged.  “Don’t focus on what he’s not.  What _is_ he?”

Jack leapt on that like a dog on a meaty bone.

“You could tell something about him or you wouldn’t’ve said this was an apology. What’s he apologizing for?”

Will cocked his head a bit, eyelids falling to half-mast.

“Couldn’t honor her.  Feels bad.”

“Not a textbook psychopath then.”  Harry noted, shooting Jack a glare when his new boss looked ready to throw in a not-helpful comment.  “That’s good and bad – for us.  But he’s not _sane_ or else he wouldn’t have risked tucking in Elise Nichols.”

“No, he’s not.”  Will blew out a breath.  “This is a different kind of crazy – but he’s still crazy.”

“What kind of crazy is he?”  Jack demanded.

“He couldn’t show her he loved her, so he put her corpse back where he killed it.”  Will snorted. “Whatever crazy that is.”

“He loves them?”  Harry hummed under his breath.  Now _that_ was something he could definitely work with.

“He loves one of them, and I think by association, he has some form of love for the others.”  Will self-corrected the thought as what he’d _seen_ of the killer clicked through his head.

Jack clocked that, seeing the actual _interest_ in Potter’s face – though he wasn’t sure whether he should be happy about that since he was still fifty-fifty on if Potter was a predator who preyed on his own kind or not – and then adding more information to Graham’s mélange of crime-scene interpretation.

“There was no semen or saliva. Elise Nichols died a virgin and that corpse kept her promise.”

Will made a disgusted noise, shoving away from the sink to pace.

“That’s not how he’s loving them. He wouldn’t disrespect them that way. He doesn’t want these girls to suffer. He kills them quickly and, to his thinking, with mercy.”

Harry nodded, and commented as Jack herded them from the bathroom and back towards the labs for the meeting with the science team:

“He has to take the next girl soon. He knows he’s going to get caught. One way or the other.”

…

While the science team and Will were discussing the demise of one Elise Nichols – Jack having stepped out to meet with the good Drs. Bloom and Lecter and keep the latter’s patience from fraying – Harry busied himself with a clean patch of counter top, a stool, and his laptop taken from his messenger bag that he’d retrieved on the way to the labs.

He would let them find their killer their way – Beverly Katz, one of the forensic specialists was definitely going in the right direction with her metal shaving find – whilst he came at their, in Jack’s words, _sensitive psychopath_ in his own.

Jack had given implicit approval for Harry’s there-but-not participation, after all, he knew that Harry’s strength of investigation didn’t come from forensics but from his understanding of human – and more importantly – predatory human behavior.

Their current killer had chosen eight young woman of vastly similar physical type and age who attended eight different colleges.

The question that rang most true to Harry as being of import was simple: how was he choosing them?

Not the obvious similarities that had led to the very-important victim profile and a real look into the killer’s psyche as provided by Professor – _call me Will, please_ – Graham.

Harry wanted to know the more mundane answer to how did the killer _know_ of these eight girls?

And so it was that while Will was making a very disturbing connection to cannibalism that brought back spine-shuddering memories of Fenrir Greyback to Harry’s mind, that he smiled inside at the realization that each of the eight colleges had had potential student meet and greets within weeks of the disappearance of a girl.

It was a simple path to chase, and one that he was certain the BSU would’ve found eventually.

Harry simply understood the mundane human behaviors that everyone was guilty of better than a team that dealt more commonly with psychosis and forensics.

When a person or group spent too much time focusing on the _ab_ normal it was easy to overlook the commonplace.

A bit of magic-backed hacking, and Harry had lists.

A bit more and he had them cross-referencing against hotel records, train tickets, and so on, the program designed by his unlamented – though still spiteful – ex-fiancé working even as he closed the laptop and trailed after Will.

Times like this, he _adored_ magic even as he found himself endlessly entertained by all the things they managed to pass off as “advanced technology” to the unknowing masses.

…

“Freddie Lounds broke the story.”  Jack cursed under his breath at the announcement from Graham as the profilers met in his office.  “Within an hour, Jack.”

Harry chuckled, his voice wry.  “That’s not just a leak.  That’s a hemorrhage.”

“I know.”  Jack pinched his nose.  “We’re already on it.”

“How many confessions?”  Hannibal asked idly as he took a seat before Jack’s desk, Will joining him and Harry propping a shoulder against the wall beside the door.

“A dozen so far.”  Jack sighed.  “Though at least the leak didn’t announce about the liver being sown back in place, just the cannibal angle.”

“And the pictures that one of the Duluth PD took with their cellphone.”  Harry added pointedly.

Will sneered, eyes locked on the edge of Jack’s desk.

“Tasteless.”

“Do you have trouble with taste?”  Hannibal asked, both he and Jack ignoring Harry rolling his eyes in the background.

“My thoughts are often not tasty.”  Will allowed, shifting a bit, eyes flicking up to Dr. Lecter’s chin and then away.

Hannibal noted the gesture, intrigued by the behavior with thoughts of the Autism spectrum flitting through his brain.

“Nor mine.”  Hannibal gave a twitch of his lips too meager to be a smile as Harry and Jack kept watch on the back-and-forth – though for very different reasons.

Jack, trying to learn what little he could about both men and keep a bead on the situation.

While Harry on the other hand, was finding himself more and more fascinated with both men – very much against his own will.  Graham had a darkness of his own, more than the reflection of the killer that he’d seen and logged in the back of his mind.  He’d need to hit the professor/profiler with the spell to be certain, but he was getting a faint magical _vibe_ off of both men, one he’d overlooked on Lecter in his office, being more engaged with his hidden darkness peaking out from the seams of his polite human veil.

“No barriers, Dr. Lecter?”  Harry asked, amused at the blatant lie.

Though given his Animagus form, Harry could find amusement and/or entertainment in almost anything.

“No effective ones, I’m afraid.”  Hannibal said, not taking his dark amber/maroon gaze off of Will Graham for an instant.

“I make forts.”  Will told them absently, mind clearly focused on something else.

“Associations come quickly.”  Hannibal noted.

“So do forts.”

“Not fond of eye contact are you?”  Hannibal finally addressed the habit.

Will smirked a little to himself, at this point having a damn good idea of what was going on under the surface of this profiling meeting – but refusing to give in to Jack’s underhanded maneuvering all the same.

Though it _did_ firm up his resolution to address his new duties with the HR department.

If Jack wanted to play games, Will was willing to play…an attitude that he had a sneaking suspicion was at least mostly his but spurred on by the fucking-with-people-because-I-can personality of his newest team member Agent Potter.

“Eyes are distracting. You see too much. You don’t see enough. And it’s hard to focus when you’re thinking those whites are really white or they must have hepatitis, or is that a burst vein? So I try to avoid eyes whenever possible.”  Will finally answered after a long moment, gaze nearly accusing on Jack’s collarbone who shifted a bit uncomfortably now that his game was being caught onto.

That he tried to play at _all_ against someone like Will simply showed the profiler how little understanding Jack had of him.

Which suited him just fine.

Hannibal hummed a bit, turning his torso to face Graham completely.

“I imagine what you see and learn touches everything else in your mind. Your values and decency are present yet shocked at your associations, appalled at your dreams. No forts in the bone arena of your skull for things you love.”

And, there went the last shred of Will’s patience, even if he was impressed – mostly despite himself – at Lecter’s laser-like accuracy.

“Whose profile are you working on?”  Will demanded, turning whip-quick on Jack with the same question.  “Whose profile is he working on?”

“I’m sorry, Will. Observing is what we do. I can’t shut mine off any more than you can shut yours off.”  Hannibal soothed – or tried to – not helped on in the least by the coughing, “ _bullshit”_ from Harry’s quarter.

Will ignored the psychiatrist for the only person in the room he had any real bone to pick with, plans of visiting HR firming up even more as he could _feel_ the dark amusement from Harry and the irritation from Jack at Potter’s unprofessional interjection.

“Please don’t psychoanalyze me.”  Will sighed, reaching down to grab his bag.  “You won’t like me when I’m psychoanalyzed.”

Harry’s lips twitched at the Hulk reference as Will stood.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go give a lecture…”  Sea-blue eyes rolled.   “…on psychoanalyzing.”

Emerald green eyes clashed for a rare split second on sea blue as the chocolate-curled-headed man stood and turned for the door, Harry moving out of the profiler’s path with a smooth sidestep and coming to take Will’s now-empty chair even as the professor stormed from the room, his irritation trailing after him in a cloud of pheromones Harry’s – and Hannibal’s – advanced sense easily picked up.

Jack simply gave a shake of his head and focused on the remaining brains at his disposal – though given Harry’s lack of helpfulness with Graham _in_ the room, he doubted that he’d get much more from him now that Graham had taken his irritated leave.

“Keep poking him like that and those Get Smart doors are going to come down faster than you can say “Boo.”  Harry noted, crossing one long leg over the other and fixing his pantleg seam with an absent flick of elegant fingers.

Hannibal turned so that he was facing both agents, having watched until Graham was out of sight.

“During intense conversations, does he adopt your cadence of speech?”  He asked, more towards the SAC than Potter.

Jack nodded.  “I thought it was a gimmick to get the back-and-forth going.  He’s not the most… _socially adept_ person I’ve met in my career.”

“It’s not.”  Harry refuted immediately.  “It’s _almost_ involuntary.  He can stop himself if he tries or do it on purpose to make someone feel at ease or unsettled.”  He smirked a bit.  “Too many mirror neurons, dancing on the borderline of being high-functioning Autistic.”

“Doctor?”  Jack asked the psychiatrist for confirmation of Harry’s educated opinion.

Hannibal studied the photos of the missing girls – and the scene from Elise Nichol’s bedroom.

“What he has is pure empathy. And projection. He can assume your point of view, or mine -- and maybe some other points of view that scare him. It’s an uncomfortable gift, Jack.”  Hannibal wanted to make that perfectly clear.  That wasn’t to say he wasn’t looking forward to… _playing_ a bit with Will’s gift.  But he was careful enough to make _certain_ the SAC knew what he was getting into…if he was wise enough to dig deeper.  Given what he’d noted of Crawford, he rather doubted Jack was wise.  “Perception’s a tool that’s pointed on both ends.”

“Most tools and gifts are.”  Harry noted perceptively.  “As you said, Doctor.  They can be hard to turn off.”

Hannibal nodded in agreement at that.

So much fun to be had, two new interesting minds to study, he was almost beside himself.

The last few years _had_ been a bit… _dull_.

“This cannibal you have him getting to know... I think I can help good Will see his face.”

“While you do that.”  Harry stood and nodded to both men.  “I have a few leads of my own to chase.”

“Anything promising?”  Jack asked, perking up.

“Perhaps.”  Harry shrugged.  “Hard to say until I reach the end of the warren, but I’ll keep you in the loop.”

Jack waited until Potter had left then looked again at Lecter in wordless demand.  The rubber-stamping was helpful, but he needed to get a better bead on an asset he simply couldn’t read as well as Graham.  Not enough neuroses to be predictable…or one too many.

“And Potter?”

“An interesting mélange of issues.”  Hannibal allowed, crossing his hands elegantly in his lap.  “None of which I can officially discuss.”

“And unofficially?”

“He won’t agree to therapy.”  Hannibal shot that idea down before it could even fully form.  And that wasn’t what Hannibal wanted with the shadowed Lord Potter anyway.  “And while normally the issues Agent Potter faces would make someone a shut-in at best and a danger at worst, they’ve made _him_ into something else entirely, likely do to his own stubbornness if nothing else.”

Jack frowned, and Hannibal gave a mental sigh knowing he would have to frame it simpler for SAC Crawford.

“He’s a predator, Jack.”  Hannibal held back an eye-roll.  “One with the right set of mental adaptations that makes him excellent at catching criminals and hard for the predators he hunts to hunt him in turn.”

“But is he a killer, Doctor?”  Jack probed insistently.

“You already know he is, Agent Crawford.”  Hannibal noted blandly.  “As are we all in the right circumstances.  The question you should be asking is whether his circumstances have shifted him from one side of the chess board to the other.”

“And have they?”

Hannibal gave a half-smile.

“I imagine that only Agent Potter could determine that, Agent Crawford.”  He thought a moment longer for dramatic effect then added.  “Or perhaps the late Thomas Riddle.”

Jack sighed.

_Fan-fucking-tastic._

…

Two days later, as Harry was puttering around his house enjoying the day off, his phone rang.

“We have a body.”  Came Jack’s voice.  “Wheels up in two hours.”

…

Ducking under the police tape surrounding a patch of Minnesota field, Will stopped and stared for a long moment, sending an incredulous look at Jack.

“I feel like I’m dreaming.”  He told the SAC, Jack snorting in commiseration.

“The head was reported stolen last night a mile from here.”  Crawford commented on the taxidermied stag head that was serving as the base of a grotesque display.

The body of a young woman was mounted – naked – on it’s antlers, serving almost as a dining table, her chest pierced through by the antlers and crows perching on her and feasting despite the forensic team including Zeller and Price trying to shoo them away from the easy meal.

“Just the head?”  Will asked, cocking his head to the side as he took off his glasses to _see_ , a departure from his normal insistence on having the site to himself while walking through the killer’s mind and retracing their steps.

Harry wandered over, a file ducked under one arm.

“Just the head.”  He confirmed.  “No ID yet on the victim.”

“The Minneapolis PD have already made a statement.”  Jack said with an unspoken curse upon eager PD’s that do more harm than good.  “They’re calling him the Minnesota Shrike.”

As they approached the corpse, the forensic team all nodded in greeting to the trio.

“Like the bird?”  Will asked as he placed the tag.

“Shrike’s a perching bird. Impales mice and lizards on thorny branches and barbed wire. Rips their organs right out of their bodies. Puts them in a little birdie pantry and eats them later. At its _leisure_.”  Jimmy Price, the BSU’s main coroner – among other specialties – commented with a bit of gruesome intrigue along with the outpouring of information.

Beverly – looking a bit green more from Jimmy’s description than the scene – pulled a face.

“Sounds about right.”  She said as she clicked away with the camera, systematically cataloguing the scene.

Jack scruffed at his jaw as Harry and Will simply studied the tableau, both being quieter than he’d come to expect from them when it came to tearing into this killer’s psychology.

“I don’t know if this is shrewd or stupidly sloppy.”  He admitted after a long moment.

Especially after so long of minimal evidence, this was a veritable buffet – and not just for the crows.

Harry snorted.

“This is the equivalent of a monkey slinging poo.”  He rolled his eyes.  “At the crowds that come to gawk at it.  Whoever did this _wanted_ her to be found this way.”

“Petulant.”  Will commented with a scowl as his eyes narrowed on the stag head.

“Mmm.”  Harry nodded.  “They’re mocking her.”

“Or us.”  Will added, a light flickering on behind his blue eyes.

Harry tilted his head towards the profiler in silent agreement.

Jack stared around the scene, drinking it all in but not touched by it.

“Where did all his love go?”  He asked – nearly demanded – of Will.

Who merely threw up his hands in exasperation that they couldn’t see it – except maybe for Potter.

“Whoever tucked Elise Nichols into bed didn’t paint this picture, Jack.”  His tone was borderline snarky.

Brian Zeller looked up from where he was examining the body.

“He took her lungs.”  He grimaced, stepping back a bit.  “I think…I think while she was still alive.”

Harry and Will traded a glance at that – even if Will’s eyes never made full contact with Harry’s.  He’d seen…shadows, the last time he’d locked gazes with Potter.  Unsettling.  Neither too much or not enough.  Just…flickers of darkness and light but no personality behind them.

Potter clearly didn’t have problems with mental barriers.

Will turned fully away from the body, staring around the stage – that’s what this was after all, just a stage for a killer’s performance.

“Our cannibal loves women. He doesn’t want to destroy them. He wants to consume them. Keep some part of them inside. This girl’s killer thought she was a pig.”  Will shook his head at that, something wanting to click but not making a full association.

It would come to him later.

It always did.

“A copy cat.”  Harry nodded, in complete agreement even as Crawford got a pissy-exasperated look on his face.

“I don’t know. Cannibal who killed Elise Nichols had a place to do it and no interest in field Kabuki.”  Will stated with no-little exasperation of his own.

“He’d need a house or two, or a cabin.”  Harry noted, helping fill in the shading on the profile.  “Elise Nichols was drained by being hung up on antlers so, something with an antler room.”

“A hunter.”  Jack nodded, that fit with the profile and the stag iconography, the use of deer velvet.  “We’re already looking at Minnesota steamfitters and plumbers and people with hunting licenses.”

“He has a daughter. Same age as the other girls.”  Will fleshed out the profile in fits and starts.  It was like he couldn’t see the Shrike clearly until someone else held up a negative to show him what _wasn’t_ there.  “Same hair color, same eye color, same height, same weight. She’s an only child. She’s leaving home. He can’t stand the thought of losing her. She’s his Golden Ticket.”

Knowing he was never going to get a better chance, Harry added part of what he’d already come to with his search.

They probably still wouldn’t find their Shrike before he could take a bit of his own brand of justice anyway.

“I’ve been conducting a search on the colleges,” he told them, staring out at the horizon as if in deep thought, his voice a bit absent.  “Looking at events around the time of the disappearances.  In every case there was an incoming/potential student event within six weeks prior to the abduction.”

Zeller and Price shared a consternated look at that tidbit as Katz smirked at them.  That was twenty bucks neither of them was getting back.  Beverly had gone in on Potter putting _something_ together – something major – before the rest of them after Graham had come up with the cannibal theory almost out of thin air.

Jack really _did_ know what he was doing pulling this – weird – pair onto their team.

“Intelligent psychopath.”  Harry shrugged.  “Sadist, not even close to the real Shrike.”

Will spring boarded off of Harry’s statement.

“An intelligent psychopath, particularly a sadist, is hard to catch. There’s no traceable motive. There’ll be no patterns. He may never kill like this again.”  Will strode away, ducking under the police tape, tossing back over his shoulder at Jack: “Have Dr. Lecter work up a psychological profile. You seem to be impressed with his opinion.”

Harry smirked over at Jack, the SAC just rolling his eyes.

“I like him.”  He commented.

“You would.”  Jack muttered.  “He’s shaping up to be just as big a pain in my ass as _you_ are.”

Harry snickered in agreement, his troublemaking-but-decent agent persona firmly in place.

Not a single flicker out of place to show the plans lurking inside the bone area of his skull.

…

In a quiet Minnesota township, there came the sound of a quiet pop in the dark of the night, followed minutes later by a second.

No one woke, not a single dog barked.

No one knew that anything at all was wrong until Garrett Jacob Hobbs woke the next morning to find his _precious_ daughter Abigail missing from her bed.

…

Will had just gotten out of the shower when the knock came on the door of the cheap motel.

It had been another long day of speaking with a victim’s family alongside Jack, and avoiding Dr. Lecter as much as possible, the psychiatrist having been sent for but unable to make the same flight as the FBI team due to needing to rearrange his patients then fly out of Baltimore.

Which as a matter of necessity meant that he hadn’t spent much time around the unsettling figure of Agent Potter – _Harry_ – either, what with Jack throwing Dr. Lecter at the Englishman to help with the profile as Will had all-but-demanded that morning.

Even Will could see that his reactions to Lecter and Potter weren’t normal.

But they weren’t without reason _either_ , though he’d be willing to admit – if only to himself – that a large part of his frustration with Lecter had solely to do with Jack springing him on him whereas with Harry it was a simple case of confusion.

He couldn’t peg either man, but Lecter at least was a quiet pond.

Harry, as he’d thought earlier, was anything but _quiet_.

It was almost as if Harry’s body and brain operated on another language altogether different than the one Will was so used to interpreting.

Will was tempted to say that his reaction to Harry was utterly singular, much like the different but singular reaction he had to Lecter…but that wasn’t _quite_ right.

He _had_ been around someone he couldn't read well enough to understand before.

It had just been sometime since he dwelled on it in any real context of his… _ability_.

Grandmeré had been the same, humming with an energy that interfered with his ability to read her…most of the time.

When she was tired or particularly drained from her home-based business as a dispenser of home-remedies and advice, an old-fashioned bayou _traiteur,_ Will could get a sense of loving warmth and straight-forward reasoning that was comforting more than any hug had ever been.

But his grandmer _é_ ’s ability had been a quiet thing.

Harry wasn’t _quiet_ in any way, shape, or form from his apparent affection for leather jackets – and Will had a feeling pants as well – to the rich, nearly unnatural green color of his shadowed eyes.

Beverly said that he was a Lord, old-world nobility.

Will didn’t have a problem believing it for an instant, even if law enforcement was a very off-the-path career for an English lord.

Rebellious…yeah, Will decided with a nod.

Wild, maybe.

Didn’t like to be trapped or tied down…a character trait he could very much understand as it was one of Will’s prevailing instincts.

Slipping into a pair of jeans and wrapping the cheap motel robe around his upper body, Will peeked through the eye-hole of the door before giving a sigh at the sight of the man who’d just been on his thoughts.

Though at least he came with provisions in hand.

It seemed Agent Potter wasn’t content with letting Will come to him in his own time, but recognized that he’d likely need a lubricant to smooth the way.

Will just hoped that it was whiskey in that bottle and something not too greasy in the paper bag as he unlocked the door with a click and prepared to lose some sleep.

With the way his mind has been since finding Elise Nichols, it wasn’t like it would have been a _peaceful_ sleep anyway.

…

Harry held in a laugh as he stared at the muzzy-eyed and smiling vision before him.

It hadn’t taken much, Will had already been stressed and pushed and pulled by Jack and the Shrike, the Copycat just becoming icing on the cake.

The sad sight of a droopy-eyed Will almost made Harry feel bad for getting him pie-eyed on top of it…almost.

Harry knew himself, knew his vices, and knew that he had an near-fatal tendency to get attached to the wrong people – willingly or otherwise.

His interest in Lecter was already dangerous and it had already been days.

He rather doubted anything good would come of either his – or Lecter’s for that matter – in Will.

But he also was a stubborn ass, who was used to having to scratch and claw and fight for what he wanted.

And ever since he’d taken a look at a pretty-faced Will Graham with sea-blue eyes hidden by ugly specs – similar to how Harry himself used to hide behind hideous round-framed glasses before he got his eyes fixed – with a head of chocolate curls and a sultry accent hiding behind clipped, white-washed speech, he’d _wanted_.

It wasn’t a good idea.

It would probably end in blood – though _whose_ remained to be seen.

Harry wasn’t one for moderation, having lived too long during his formative years with a ticking clock in the back of his mind on his lifespan.

Living to eighteen was more than he’d ever considered at eight.

He’d been convinced – before Hogwarts and Tom and Albus – that he wouldn’t live to have a future.

As a result, he’d guarded what little joy in life that he found jealously – and viciously.

Harry lived fast and hard, he took predators as his prey, and had left a nation broken-hearted by his refusal to “marry a nice witch and settle down.”

And inside that curly head and behind those blue eyes, Harry saw something – or perhaps the chance of something – the likes of which he’d never seen before: self-fear coating a will of solid diamond, all wrapped around a dark heart that was as much natural as it was a reflection of all the monstrous wells Will had peered into for the sake of justice.

What’s more, he’d _also_ seen that he wasn’t the only one fascinated by the mystery wrapped in an enigma that was Will Graham, and had no intention of surrendering the field to Hannibal Lecter without a vicious and bloody battle.

With that at the forefront of his mind – and knowing from Jack that if the status quo remained Will and Lecter would be teamed up in the morning to look into some of the work sites for their Shrike – Harry tipped the Marker’s Mark bottle (the best he could find in Minnesota without his cellar) one more time into both of their glasses, gaining a boozy-but-relaxed smile from sea blue eyes and well-formed lips.

“Why me?”  Will finally asked.

They’d talked about the case – but only briefly – after digging into a pair of po’ boy sandwiches that while not nearly as good as his grandmeré could make were better than he generally found north of the Mason-Dixon line, but for the most part the pair of hours that had passed since Harry showed up short of midnight had been spent in Harry sharing humorous tales of his old unit and his training, Will even joining in now and again with an anecdote of a crushing FBI trainee filling his desk drawer with chocolate hearts on Valentine’s Day or a fuck-up from his days with the NOPD.

It was probably the most _friendly_ conversation Will had had in months if not years.

And under the whiskey haze, he was more than a bit wary of it.

Give him his dogs any day.

They were simple.

People…people were complicated, and often worse than most would be willing to admit to.

A fact which Harry – for some reason – wasn’t straying away from, his stories having as much _tells_ to his darker nature than most LEO’s would _ever_  risk confiding in anyone.

There were certain personalities that thrived in sectors like law enforcement or the military.

And just as often those personalities couldn’t handle the lack of control that those sectors often dealt with, resulting in an appallingly high domestic abuse rate or sociopath percentage.

“Why not you?”  Harry asked, quirking a grin then giving in.  “I’m interested in you, that’s a part of it, and I’m not shy about letting you know it.  And everyone else’s rooms were dark was another.”  Harry gave him a serious look, one of the few of the night.  “You’re not the only one haunted by the past – or by your imagination, Will.  Is it so surprising that I might want company to keep the shadows at bay?”

“Interested in me?”  Will snorted softly, ignoring the rest and even the implication behind that leading statement.  Something to freak out over when he’s sober.  “You’re not a psychiatrist – or Jack – so I find that a little hard to believe.”

Harry shrugged.  “We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that then.  You’re more than your mind, Will.  Though I find that part of you fascinating, it wouldn’t be enough to have me seeking you out at eleven at night.  We’re two sides of the same coin, Will.”  Harry tilted his head, a soft smile on his face as he stood, gathering up his leather jacket and patting for his key card.

Will smirked.  “Lose something?”

“Maybe.”  Harry said with a sheepish glance at the other man from under inky lashes.  Though it was hard to lose something that you didn’t bring with you in the first place.  It wasn’t like he _needed_ his key card to get back into his room.  But as long as Will didn’t know that…well.  Harry wasn’t shy about going after what he wanted.

And he wanted Will Graham, though for what or how long he was yet to decide.

Rolling his eyes with a gusty sigh, Will stumbled over to the bed – more than a little unsteady after sharing a bottle with Harry, with him doing most of the drinking – and tossed a pillow at the green eyed devil.

“You can’t have the bed, and I don’t share with anyone but my dogs.”  Will told him, his words starting to slur as the alcohol kicked into high gear with his moving from sitting to standing.

“I can make do with the chair.”  Harry nodded his head in thanks as Will shucked the extra blanket from the foot of the bed and tossed that too before stripping off his robe and crawling between the sheets in his jeans.  “Thanks, Will.”

“Don’…don’ mention it.”  Will muttered.  “Gonna be pissed at myself in the mornin’.”

“You can take it all out on me.”  Harry promised as he kicked off his boots and set his jacket aside, making the chair more comfortable with a spell and anchoring the ottoman with another so it wouldn’t slip out from under him in the night.

“Gonna.”  Will mumbled, already more than half-asleep and with the accent peeking out to show for it.  “You jus’ _wait_.”

It was probably one of the more adorable things he’d ever seen, Harry decided sleepily, even as he set a quiet spell to wake him with a twitch of his fingers and a flex of power.

Will could be pissed at him as he liked, but he wouldn’t be _really_ angry – Harry was rather certain – unless the situation was revealed in an… _unbecoming_ or embarrassing manner to their colleagues.

To that end, he figured on waking in a few hours, downing a Pepper-Up, and taking off with a note for Will.

And that was just what he did.

Though he added a glass of water and a couple aspirin weighing down said note after a diagnostic pegged Will has having some sort of infection - he'd have to do something about that if it was still there in a few days - and a surprising revelation regarding the faint tingle of magic he'd gotten off of the profiler, and last a disillusionment spell to make sure that he wasn’t seen by any of their hyper-observant new co-workers.

As he opened the door to his own room, dropping the spell after he turned to make it look like he’d opened it from the inside and was coming to pick up the newspaper he’d requested on check-in, Harry smirked as he spotted Hannibal already up and about with a bag of groceries from the nearby market and looking far too alert.

 _Opening gambit, mine_.  He thought, giving the doctor a quick salute with the folded paper before ducking back inside.  _Your turn, Dr. Lecter._

…

For the second time in less than twelve hours, someone knocked on Will’s door.

At least this time, he wasn’t dripping wet, since between Harry’s good-humored company and the whiskey (plus the first full meal he’d probably had in days) Will had slept like a rock.

“Ugh…comin’, I’m coming.”  Will grumbled, brightening just a bit when the pounding on the door stopped, even if the pounding in his head kept on trucking.  Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, he absently noted a distinctly _lack_ of Englishmen in the crappy motel room chair, though an addition of a glass of water and a couple aspirin on the nightstand.

Blessing Harry – if only for a split-second before cursing him for the mild hangover – Will knocked back the aspirin, downed half the water, glanced at the note and then stumbled for the door, not bothering this time with the robe that was somewhere on the other side of the bed.

Whoever it was – and it was probably Jack given his tendency of waking him out of a sound sleep – could deal with his bare-and-scarred chest at seven-fucking-o’clock in the morning.

Wiping the sleep from his eyes, all he could do was blink at the sight of Dr. Lecter, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in yet-another version of a high-end plaid suit, though this time he came with a coffee thermos and what looked like a thermal food carrier/lunch bag.

If it wasn’t for his read of Harry being so anti-authoritarian, Will would have gotten the distinct impression that he was being babysat.

“Where’s Crawford?”  He asked once his brain cells started firing after the mind-blanking vision of Lecter bringing him what he suspected was coffee and breakfast.

Which made two men bringing libations and food to his – temporary – door in twelve hours, freaking him out more than a little bit with the worry that he’s finally cracked and gone off the rails and this all was one giant hallucination.

“Deposed in court. The adventure will be yours and mine today.”  Hannibal supplied smoothly.  “The others have been given their own missions, while you and I have our own assignment.”  He paused, letting that sink in as Will propped one bare shoulder against the door frame, enjoying the view Will was inadvertently giving him.

He was very much akin to Michelangelo’s David standing there in the early morning sun, save for the pucker of scars at shoulder and opposite hip.

It made Hannibal yearn for a drawing pad and pencil to immortalize it, though with his mind palace he could easily do so once he returned to his room later that day or at his leisure.

Though he would have to set it in a much more _pleasing_ tableau than a dingy motel doorway.

“May I come in?”  He prompted after a long moment.

With a final scrutinizing – and more than a little suspicious – glance, Will stepped back into the room, waving Hannibal in and closing the door with a too-loud _click_ in the small room, muttering something about a shirt before disappearing into the bathroom.

As Will busied himself with becoming at least moderately presentable – though Hannibal had no issues with the half-bared stated he’d answered the door in – Hannibal took in the room.

Specifically, the pillow and blanket tidied on the side chair, and the pair of glasses and mostly-empty bottle of whiskey on the small table, ending in a flicker-quick scowl at the scene that easily painted itself into his mind.

The only question was _whom_ good Will had had as platonic – due to the pillow on the chair – company the previous night.

And given the lingering notes in the air of honey, musk, and other faint scents, Hannibal would wager on said company being British and too discerning for its own good.

It seemed that Hannibal wasn’t the only one intrigued by the good Professor Graham and his gifts.

Though what specifically interested Potter remained to be seen.

Still, it complicated Hannibal’s game…though not in a _dis_ pleasing manner.

It had been ever-so-long since he’d had a true challenge.

…

 


	4. Aequitas

** Dark Hearts **

_How seldom we recognize the sound when the bolt of our fate slams home_ _._

_\- Thomas Harris, Red Dragon Foreword_

**Chapter Three: Aequitas**

The minute curl of Hannibal’s lip – a direct result of the whiskey bottle and _pair_ of used tumblers on the table that he’d cleared away with his usual efficiency while Will went through a semblance of a waking routine in the bathroom – disappeared like so much smoke as the intriguing empath in question half-stumbled his way back to the small dining table set before the shabby curtains in the sub-par motel.

Hannibal had been made privy to Will’s analysis – and subsequent profile of, well, _him_ – of the Cassie Boyle “field kabuki” scene.

A description that forced him to stifle an inappropriate-at-the-time chuckle given that Uncle Jack was staring at the back of his head while waiting for Hannibal’s own profile – also of himself.

Which he’d given with his standard stoicism, agreeing entirely with Will’s rough sketch and filling in a bit of the shading – if using the wrong color and pencil altogether, leading them more towards a “partner” of the Shrike rather than Hannibal himself who had created his tableau with testing Will – and perhaps Harry – more than anything else.

Neither disappointed, though he was less than pleased over their building their own rapport _outside_ of the watchful eyes of himself or their strict SAC.

No matter.

While Will and Harry becoming friendly – or even friends against all odds – was a divergence from what Hannibal had learned or surmised about Will, it was completely in-character for a predator like Potter.

Much as it was for Hannibal.

And for much the same reason if Hannibal was _any_ good at psychiatry at all.

Will Graham, empath and forensic profiler, was by far and away the greatest threat – and challenge – Hannibal had ever come across, far outstripping that bumbling Inspector Pazzi in his intemperate youth.

It simply made _sense_ for a predator like himself or the one he suspected prowled behind emerald eyes to keep such a threat close…if it wasn’t to be eliminated.

And Will Graham was much too fascinating a creature to be wiped away…at the moment.

“Breakfast scramble.”  Hannibal announced as was his way, while Will sat – now attired in a plain white t-shirt over his boxers – and picked up the steaming cup of coffee Hannibal had provided.  It brought him more than a little satisfaction to watch surprised pleasure flitter over that too-pretty-under-scruff face at the first sip before it settled back into rote disgruntlement.  “Eggs, sausage, assorted vegetables.  Some protein to start our day.”

Sitting down after dishing them up – a much lacking presentation but needs-must – Hannibal waited for Will to take his first bite, and for another flicker of surprise to cross his face, before striking up conversation between mannerly bites.

It also allowed him a real _glimpse_ into Will’s upbringing, beyond the easy off-the-cuff psychiatry notations that anyone with a year or two of practice to their name could make.

Table manners at a casual meal, he had found, like reactions under duress, often told a tale far greater than more policed interactions such as a society function – or a meeting in one’s superior’s office.

Will Graham had unconscious manners that were a bit rough but still present.

Working class, lower-middle or upper-poor, but many formative years spent in the southern United States where _manners_ were still taught alongside “The War of Northern Aggression” from both the lectern and the pulpit.

Likely a single child, possible single-family home (Hannibal would have to see him interact with females before he make a decision on single-father versus single-mother), some form of instability.

And on his theories rolled through his mind, shifting and reforming and clicking together like puzzle pieces the more he watched and spoke with Will Graham.

“You didn’t need to do this.”  Will said once he was a bit more coherent.

“Consider it an apology.”  Hannibal told him, eyes a dark amber in the morning light pouring into the room.  “For an ambush I wasn’t aware that I was participating in.  Such methods are not my preference when giving an approval for field work.”

Will arched a brow, half-believing him and half-surprised that Hannibal admitted to Jack’s double-dealing.

“None necessary.”  Will waved it off, even as he emptied his coffee that he was ninety-nine percent sure cost more than anything he’d tasted in his life based on how rich and delicious it was, Hannibal refilling it from the thermos he’d brought along with the meal.  “I know how Jack operates.”

“You’ve worked with him before?”

“I’ve worked with men _like_ him before.”  Will corrected.  “Treats everyone like a suspect, always on the offense, always interrogating.  Bully.”  He shrugged.  It didn’t bother him – not much – so long as Jack kept it focused on _actual_ suspects.  If not…well.  Jack would find out quick, fast, and in a hurry that Will wasn’t nearly as easy to push around or manipulate as he thought.  “But aware of it and tries – a bit half-heartedly – to keep it in check.  Thinks I’m broken, since it’s better in his mind that just different.”

Will’s smirk was more than a little bitter, but a dark _enjoyment_ of Jack’s misdiagnosis of Will’s “issues” lit his sea-blue eyes for a moment.

“Jack sees you as a fragile little tea cup, to be used only for the finest and rarest of company.”  Hannibal allowed.

“Serial killers being the finest and rarest.”  Will rolled his eyes.

A quiet moment passed, then he asked: “And how do you see me, Doctor Lecter?”

Hannibal looked up from his plate, having been avoiding trying to pin Will with eye contact as it would be rude given his avowed dislike of such thing, only to find himself under close scrutiny, his breath catching a bit – unnoticeably of course – at the depths of shadows and cunning in that rare glimpse beneath Will’s mask.

There were no obstructing glasses today, no too big – and worn – flannel shirts and lumpy chinos.

Just Will.

And Hannibal was quickly coming to realize just how dangerous a thing “just Will” could be.

Even to someone like him.

“As the mongoose I want under my house as the snakes slither passed.”  Hannibal gave him a semi-truth.

Will didn’t know how to respond to that, settling for a tilt of his head before taking the last few bites before attempting to regain his footing.

“Let’s just…keep things professional, Dr. Lecter.”  Will settled on.

“Or we could socialize, like adults. God forbid we become friendly.”  Hannibal quirked a half-smile, edges of his eyes crinkling with the purring accent.

A dare, if Will wasn’t mistaken.

Tempting him, though to what end he wasn’t quite sure – not yet.

Will scoffed a little, complete with a rebuff to hit Lecter where it hurt – in the impeccably dressed ( _vain_ , he’d known at first glance) man’s ego.

“I don’t find you that interesting.”

Hannibal held in a bared-teeth grin of victory.

If Will was trying to set him down, he’d have to try harder than that.

Hannibal got what he wanted – _always_.

And with every dodge and deflection, Will simply whetted his appetite for Hannibal to crack open that interesting mind…one way or another…and discover the clockworks inside of it.

“You will.”

…

_Bloomington, MN; the Previous Night_

Will’s profile – fascinating ability, that, Harry was going to need to run a diagnostic on him next time he had him alone and comfortable and (hopefully) unaware of what he was up to – had given Harry what he needed to make a decision.

He’d been on the fence after getting the results back from his searches.

Did he, didn’t he, not now, maybe later?

 _Who_ was also a consideration.

A legilimancy scan on the sleeping girl – courtesy of chloroform rather than a spell, it didn’t _do_ to leave his magical signature lying around anymore than it did his fingerprints – was merely a confirmation rather than a final nail in her coffin.

She was guilty.

Moreso, Harry would say, than her batshit-insane father.

Not _once_ had she given more than a passing thought to saying something.

If she had been trying to protect her family – perhaps in the only way she saw – then he would have at least felt some compassion for her.

But it wasn’t that.

Never that.

It was pure, unadulterated self-interest…and more than a little conceit.

After all, her daddy loved her _so much_ that he wanted to consume her, keep her with him forever, and never let her go – but also loved her _too_ much to kill her and “honor” her the way he did the stand-ins _she chose_ for him.

Heady shit for a seventeen year old girl who’d been sheltered all her life and exposed to stylized – and unrealistic – ideas of what “love” consisted of from the cradle the same as most middle-class American girls of her generation.

The twit.

Still, she was a _vicious_ twit – but a twit nonetheless.

Stupidity had never been an excuse in Harry’s book any more than it was in a court of law, so Harry found mercy and compassion for Abigail Hobbs in short supply as his thoughts whipped back around to the starting point of _she chose_.

She chose to go along with her father.

She chose to play lure.

She chose his prey, her stand-ins.

And she _chose_ her life above theirs or going to the authorities – _any_ authorities – especially once more than one girl had “gone missing.”

Ickiest of all for Harry, she also chose to let her father turn her mother into an unknowing cannibal.

It was one thing to partake of a taboo like that of your own choice and accord – no one had the right to make it for you.

Especially not your “beloved” husband and “darling” daughter as he could see in Abigail’s mind how her mother referred to each of them in turn.

Harry gave serious thought to waking her up – letting her know what was going on and most importantly _why_ – but disregarded it in the end for practicality’s sake.

The Shrike killed with _mercy_ after all, he _loved_ his Golden Ticket.

He wouldn’t terrify her out of her blasted twisted _mind_ beforehand.

With a sigh, Harry checked her for any sign of waking – there shouldn’t be, and wasn’t – then followed the pattern: strangulation while laying supine, racking her for drainage into a container, and so on.

A few final, finishing touches the next day – courtesy of the Shrike’s own doing and psychosis – and the case would be laid to bed.

Not, naturally, the way that either Hobbs or Crawford would prefer, but in a manner that had one more predator off the streets…and the dark creature prowling inside Harry’s chest silenced for another day.

One last pit stop in his room for a quick change and a bottle of whiskey, and Harry was ready to go drink way the night with Will – and provide himself a handy alibi in the process.

Emerald eyes flashed near-black in the shadows of his motel room, as Harry imagined the delicious grieved _pain_ that would consume Garrett Jacob Hobbs when he followed Harry’s note to his own hunting cabin and found the _gift_ Harry left for him there.

A note, which naturally, would crumble to dust after it had fulfilled its purpose, such a minor feat of magic in a country overflowing with power that the chances of tracking it would be negligible, and none at all if not begun within an hour afterwards.

…

_University of Minnesota, Office of Student Outreach, Minneapolis, MN_

“Agent Potter.”  The Dean of Student Outreach offered her hand as he was ushered into her warm office.  “What can I do for you today?”

It was all said with a pleasant enough tone, though the underlying tension gave way to her knowledge of just _what_ he was there for.

“Dean Simmons.”  Harry nodded politely.  “I’m working on a new line of investigation regarding the Shrike – specially his choosing methodology.”

“Anything I or my staff can do to help.”  Alicia Simmons reassured him, lips pursed.  “The University has cooperated with all of the efforts of law enforcement regarding these missing girls.  And now with this last?”  She shook her head.  “My resources are at your full disposal, Agent Potter.”

“Thank you.”  Harry flashed a quick smile.  “How often does the University have incoming or potential student events?”

Alicia gave a little laugh.  “Often, as I’m sure you’re aware.  We have one ongoing right now.  At least one a month except for December and March or April for term finals.”

Harry nodded, scribbling that down in his open tablet, stylus held at the ready.

“And before the first victim was taken, how many days prior was the last event of that kind?”

Frowning lightly, Alicia turned to her computer, using her scheduling software to bring up the information.

“Twenty days – almost three weeks.”

“And would you still have the roster for that event?”

“Of course,” she shrugged, turning to go through a filing cabinet and efficiently locating the sign-in sheet.  “Here it is.”  Alicia handed it over.  “It was one of the smaller groups – given that it was August.  Our biggest groups tend to come in the fall and early winter, not late summer.”

“Thank you,” Harry scanned it, holding in a smile as he spotted the names of Abigail and her parents on the roster.  “This is very helpful.  Can I keep this or…?”

“I’ll have Janine print you a copy.”  Alicia told him, calling out to her secretary who came and did just that, the two making polite small talk while they waited.  Once Janine had returned and given over the requested copy, Harry rose, tucking it away in his messenger bag.

“Is there anything else I or the university can do for you, Agent Potter?”  Alicia asked obligingly.

“That’s all – for the moment.”  Harry gave her one of his charming grins, shaking the offered hand.  “Thank you, Dean Simmons.  Have a good day.”

…

Harry made good time back to his rental car, adding the list to the four others he’d gathered that morning.  Thankfully, with Hobbs living twenty minutes from Minneapolis, most of the colleges he’d targeted and his daughter had picked from were within close distance to each other.  And, obligingly enough of Garrett Jacob Hobbs, he’d signed in on each and every roster Harry had collected so far.

He already knew that, but hacking wasn’t considered a law-abiding way to gather evidence.

Colleges handing it over on the other hand, was very much admissible in a court of law.

Not that he thought the Shrike would live to be taken into custody let along trial…but needs-must when it came to covering his tracks.

With that in mind, he shot off a quick email to Jack with a short-list of names who had shown up repeatedly on the roster lists, asking to have Bowman at Quantico look into their movement records for overlap with the victims.

Harry noted in the email that only Hobbs had been to all five of the currently-collected events based on their rosters, though he’d provided a list of several others that had been to at least three.

Jack proved that he was keeping abreast of the investigation – court or no court – when he called minutes later as Harry was using the campus wi-fi to dig up Abigail’s social media accounts.

“Why potential student events?”  Was Jack’s oh-so-genial demand, it barely less than a bark and that mostly due to having to keep his voice low in the courthouse.

“Will’s profile.”  Harry said – which _would_ be true if Harry hadn’t already pinged the idea from the victim pattern.  “Daughter leaving home?  Eight girls from eight different campuses?  That’s more than a pattern, Jack.”

“Good work.”  Jack told him, shoving down the glee he felt at the efficacy of the Harry-Will tag-team.  He’d have to buy Kingsley one hell of a bottle of Scotch for letting him take on his best agent.  “Contact Graham and Lecter, give them the list to cross-reference with the metal-worker angle.”

“Will do.”  Harry said, hesitated a moment for effect and then: “Jack?”

“Yeah.”

“I pulled up the daughter’s social media on the hat-trick name: Hobbs, the one who’d gone to all the events?”

“What about it?”  Jack asked as he felt the adrenaline start to rush through his veins.  This was it.  He knew it.

“Plain but pretty, wind-chaffed skin, blue eyes.”  Harry rattled off, staring down at the picture of Abigail.  “I think I might’ve found our Golden Ticket.”

Jack blew out a breath, flicking his wrist over to calculate how long it would take him to get out of court and finish up with the warrants for the rest of the construction and metal-plant company records.

“Call Graham.”  He ordered.  “See if he and Lecter can come up with a link from Hobbs to a metal working job.  If yes…go ahead and meet up with them for an interview, low-key don’t spook him.”

“Will’s a profiler, and Lecter’s a shrink.”  Harry pointed out – mainly just for effect.  “They don’t need me to hold their hands through an interview.”

“And neither of them are vested agents – Will’s still an investigator, he doesn’t have the same protections and privileges under the law that you do.”  Jack rolled his eyes.  He swore Potter questioned him just for the hell of it.

“Whatever you say, Jack.”  Harry sighed.  “I’ll touch base with them, if they haven’t found anything on Hobbs I’ll meet up and help them find it.”

“Good man.”

…

Dr. Lecter and Will had apparently gotten a slower start than Harry, and were arriving at their second site by the time Harry met up with them.

Though, granted, they had the much more tedious job, as Harry (in addition to knowing already who he was looking for on the lists) had only had to request lists of names from the colleges not dig through dusty employment files with less-than-helpful secretaries watching and gossiping over his shoulder.

A large part of Harry’s perverse nature enjoyed the exasperation in Will’s tone when Harry filled him in on Jack sending him to help – though Harry kept back the name they were looking for…mainly because Harry already knew from picking Abigail’s brain that her father had worked for the second site on Will’s list and wanting to see if the profiler twigged it without Harry planting the lead.

Jack would be pissed – if he ever found out – _but_ Harry rather thought that whatever else the day brought, it would overshadow a bit of subterfuge on Harry’s part.

“Harry.”  Will nodded towards the special agent as he stepped into the portable office-trailer.

“Special Agent Potter.”  Hannibal echoed the movement, then the pair of them went back to flipping through reams of employment files, boxing anything that might be of note or anyone that came close to the profile.

“Ma’am.”  Harry showed his identification to the construction company’s secretary.  “Special Agent Potter, FBI.  I’ll be assisting my teammates.”

“As you will.”  Dixie arched a brow, reluctantly impressed by the shiny badge and the shinier accent on him.  Like a real live 007 strutting into her office in nowhere-Minnesota.

“What have you got, Will?”  Harry asked, voice pitched low, as the woman went back to her phone call.

“Not much.”  Will sighed, unfortunately files alone didn’t give him much to go on.  “Plenty of workers in the right age rage, but other than that…”  he trailed off, frowning.  “Garrett Jacob Hobbs.”

Harry arched a brow.  It seemed he showed up at just the right time.

Dixie perked up, glancing over at the name.

“One of our pipe threaders.”  She told him, spying the file in his hand.  “ _I’ll have to call you back_.”  She told her friend.  “Those are all the resignation letters.  Plumbers union require them at the end of every contract.”

“Did Mr. Hobbs have a daughter?”  Will asked as Hannibal and Harry exchanged a knowing look.

He’d found something, though in both of their cases they were equally stymied for the how, with only Harry registering the _who_.

Hannibal, however, had enough interest in Will’s unique perceptive abilities to want to see where he took this.

As, if it didn’t lead straight to the Shrike, he would have to confess himself disappointed.

“She’d be about a high school senior.”  Harry supplied when the woman just looked baffled – and uncomfortable.  “Seventeen or eighteen years old.”

“Might have.”  Dixie told them, shifting as a chill drifted over her.  She knew why they were there.  She wasn’t a stupid woman by any means.  But that didn’t mean that she wanted to _think_ about _why they were there_.  Or that it meant she might have had a serial killer in and out of her office only days before.  “I don’t keep company with most of our contracted employees.”

“What is it about Garrett Jacob Hobbs that you find so peculiar?”  Hannibal asked, curiosity pressing at him.

Will held out the file – opened to the resignation letter – to both Dr. Lecter and Harry.

“He didn’t leave an address, just a phone number.”

Hannibal blinked in surprise.

“Therefore he has something to hide?”  He questioned.

Will shrugged, not focusing on Hannibal’s questions or giving them much weight.

“Everyone else did.”

“Rule one of investigation, Dr. Lecter.”  Harry filled in as Will followed up with the secretary for the address to the Hobbs house.  “Anything that sticks out – even as simple as failing to leave a forwarding address – has to be followed-up on.  It’s the mundane minutiae of life that finds criminals more often than instances of extravagant happenstance.”

Hannibal gave a soft hum as he thought that over, while Harry set to packing up the files the others had already accumulated, making sure they were all packed neatly – a bit of a compulsion after a childhood of rigorous tidiness – and including the file of resignation letters.

Will watched – half there and half not – as Harry and Hannibal took the boxes to the trunk of his rental car, only dialing back in as Dixie handed over the address and he strode outside to meet up with the others.

As Will exited the trailer, Harry waved him over to the closed trunk of his rental that he was using as a desk for his laptop.

“What is it?”  He asked a bit impatient to go and interview Hobbs.

“I found something myself this morning before Jack sent me your way.”  Harry explained, pointing to a spreadsheet program that had – thanks to a bit of magic – logged and cross-referenced all of the event logs, a backup that would likely be a key piece of evidence if Hobbs made it to court, as Harry couldn’t _exactly_ say that he’d hacked his way hither-and-yon throughout Minnesota before he’d even left Quantico.

“Yeah?”

“Garrett Jacob Hobbs.”  Harry smirked a little at the tell-tale blinks of surprise that netted him from both men.  “Attended five – that we know of thus far – college recruitment events with his daughter, seventeen-year-old Abigail Hobbs.  A bright high school senior with…”

“Let me guess.”  Will sighed heavily.  “Wind-chaffed skin, brown hair and blue eyes.”

“Mmm.”  Harry nodded.  “Jack wanted me to help you look for any employment records that would help fit Hobbs to the killer’s profile alongside his daughter fitting the victims.  Only,” he shrugged a bit haplessly.  “You found it before I could even mention it.”

“Two different pieces to the same puzzle.”  Hannibal commented, with a hidden _hunger_ just behind his eyes.  They were dangerous to him, of that he had never been more certain.

Whether that _danger_ could be tempered by interest, beyond that of the hidden (Will) and not-so-hidden (Harry) dark hunger of their own he sensed within them, he didn’t yet know.

But he was _keen_ to discover the answer to that question for himself.

“Cuffs or no cuffs?”  Will asked regarding the interview Jack no doubt asked Harry to oversee as an active agent.

“Informal for now.”  Harry allowed.

“No cuffs.”  Will snarked a bit under his breath towards Hannibal.

Harry just grinned, snapping his laptop closed and wandering over to the driver side door of his rental as Will and Hannibal climbed into their own, all the while mentally debating whether Hobbs had chosen suicide or suicide by cop all the way to the home he’d made with his wife and the daughter he loved just a _hair_ too much.

After all, the world for Garrett Jacob Hobbs without his Abigail…such a thing would be nothing less than blasphemy to the deranged man.

Harry did so hope that Hobbs had chosen the latter.

The former would just be… _boring_ , an underwhelming end for an underwhelming life marked with only eight gleams of something _more_ than plain, white-bread, normality.

Though Harry was certain to Hobbs that count should read nine.

However, as Harry wasn’t in unhealthy, possessive love with Abigail Hobbs, he saw nothing great or _more_ about her.

Even her selfish tendency towards survival was nothing less than hideously _dull_ , beyond how her father had used it towards his own ends.

…

Harry could almost _smell_ the frustration coming off of Lecter as Will led them through a boring and trite interview with Mrs. Hobbs.

He imagined that if he moved closer to the predator on the other side of the room that he would smell the emotion rising from the outwardly-calm psychiatrist, thanks to his better-than-normal Animagus senses.

“What time did your husband and daughter leave this morning, Mrs. Hobbs?”  Harry asked politely as Lecter watched him and the prowling-seeking- _seeing_ Will with carefully subdued interest.

The flustered-but-honestly-puzzled (and a bit frightened, after all, her Abigail looked like the _other_ girls that had gone missing) Judy Hobbs frowned in concentration.

“It was early.”  She told them, still a bit confused about why they were asking all these questions.  “That’s their way, leaving early for their hunting trips or for college visits.  Garrett and Abigail have always been close.”  She smiled softly.  “Daddy’s little girl right from the start.  They’ve always been sure to let me keep sleeping after a swing shift at the hospital.”

“Mmm.”  Harry hummed obligingly at the nurse’s aide.

“This isn’t here.”  Will pointed out abruptly, gesturing towards on of the framed pictures hanging on the mantle.  It was a hunter’s home from the antlers on the wall to the proudly-displayed portrait of a father and daughter celebrating – if he were to _see_ to confirm – the latter’s first kill.

“No.”  Judy told him, splitting her baffled look between the polite – and so _handsome_ – FBI agent and the strange men he brought with him.  “Garrett’s family has owned that hunting cabin for ages out in the state forest since before it was made a state forest.  He’s very proud of it.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hobbs.”  Harry flipped his notebook closed and rose without further ado now that Will had tagged what Harry had needed him to in order to keep things rolling along his well-paved path.  He _almost_ felt bad for leading the beautiful mind down such a well-manicured lawn when it was clear he was meant for wild woods and streams.  But, needs must.  Harry set down one of his new cards.  “We’ll be in touch.”

…

After taking their leave of the baffled – almost _intently_ confused, willfully blind if Hannibal were to diagnose it – Mrs. Hobbs and getting the address of said hunting cabin, they reconvened at the pair of rental cars.

“I’ll call Jack.”  Was all Will said, already climbing into the driver’s seat and digging out his phone.

Hannibal merely lifted a brow at Potter, the latter smirking a bit, entertainment at his boredom gleaming in his eyes.

“Don’t worry so, Dr. Lecter.”  Harry told him with a glint of dark promise.  “Things will pick up soon enough.”

“He’s meeting us there.”  Will called out.  “Should only be behind by ten minutes or so.”

“Ten minutes?”  Hannibal asked, tilting his head towards Potter, who if he wasn’t mistaken had peeled back more than a little of his own tailor-human-suit once Will was out of sight.

“More than enough.”

…

And staring at the blood-flecked face of Will Graham, a low pull deep in his belly that carried a touch of heat and hunger intertwined, Hannibal had to agree.

A ten-minute lead had been more than enough.

Though he had to wonder, as he eyed Potter, just how much was happenstance and how much was _design._

…

A picture flashed brightly onto a white screen, the tableau nothing less than _strange_ even more than a week later.

A week that Will had spent in and out of interview rooms and digging through unending piles of paperwork, all with the lingering threat of having to have a _real_ psych eval if he wanted to gain field-ready status.

The woes of getting his lawyer and HR involved in Jack’s little profiler acquisition spree.

Still, considering the hit the BSU’s budget would take every time Jack had to fork over the consulting fee that had been worked out between the suits (apparently based off of what _Harry_ could demand to consult on cases out of the scope of his contracted duties) it should keep Jack from overworking him to prevent him from draining the unit’s budget…in _theory_ anyway.

And now, a mere seven days after he and Harry stumbled into the Shrike’s Last Stand – _thank you Freddie Lounds and your penchant for trespassing on crime scenes –_ Will found himself lecturing on the case due to the high profile it had had in the media and the high likelihood of copy cats in the future.

After all, at least _one_ had already popped out of the woodwork, Harry and Will between them and backed by Lecter managing to have Cassie Boyle’s murder properly classified instead of lumped in with the other Shrike victims…which had grown to nine in total, finishing with his “Golden Ticket.”

“Victim Nine: Abigail Hobbs.”  Will’s voice carried easily through the auditorium.  With the unique profile, his lecture wasn’t in his normal classroom but the largest lecture hall Quantico commanded and had more than trainees present.  Which wasn’t helping him keep his cool, sweat readily pooling at neck and back and knees.  Thankfully, his normal stress-response wasn’t showing on his face or in his voice in front of a room of trained professionals that would pick up on it quicker than Homer Simpson after a donut.  “Garrett Jacob Hobbs had a distinct victimology: substitutes for his daughter Abigail.  By killing and consuming his placeholders, he attempted to assimilate her – keep her with him always.”

More than a few trainees – and fully-fledged agents – squirmed at what he _wasn’t_ saying as it had been covered more than thoroughly in both the media and the earlier parts of his lecture.

“Hobbs also had a distinct methodology that made him hard to catch.”  Light flashed across Will’s glasses as he changed the protected images to ones showing the results of the FBI search of the Hobbs residence: evidence of hair used to stuff pillows, leather made from human skin, and so on.  “In his own words when he was discovered after hanging his ninth victim –“ and _daughter_ – “up to be bled for butchering and _repurposing_ , he had to _honor_ his victims.  Evidence shows – and statements taken from his wife, Judy – that as a game hunter he held to an ideology that without honoring every part of a kill, it was murder.  An ideology that bled over into psychosis.”

Another click of his pointer, another set of images: these of paperwork.  A resignation letter, rosters from college events, train tickets, movie stubs, and so on.

Harry had certainly been thorough, and the forensic computer analysts had easily followed his trail to yet more evidence against Hobbs.

“While we will never know for certain, evidence suggests that Abigail Hobbs could have been her father’s accomplice as well as his ninth victim.  Following up on evidence found on his eighth victim, Elise Nichols, led the investigation to searching for pipe threaders and fitters, metal workers, and so on.”  Will gestured to the resignation letter he’d found at the construction site.  “While Special Agent Potter had taken on searching out _how_ Hobbs was selecting his victims, leading to the discovery of his attendance at campus events alongside his daughter.  That discovery along with his occupation and the evidence found on Elise Nichols, led us to Hobbs.  Upon interviewing Judy Hobbs, and learning of the secluded hunting cabin…”

_“Garrett Jacob Hobbs, FBI!”_

_“Mr. Hobbs, step away from your daughter!”_

_“I have to, have to_ honor _her!”_

_Hung from antlers, still in her pristine blue nightgown, blood dripping crimson from wind-chaffed skin._

_“Mr. Hobbs, put down the knife!”_

_A sobbing snarl, a flash of silver._

_Bang!_

“A team investigated, finding Hobbs in the middle of,” Will grimaced, pain throbbing behind his eyes and a ravenstag dancing in and out of the shadows as he felt the phantom echo of the jerk of his former-now-reactivated service pistol.  “Preparing Ms. Hobbs for butchering.  Upon being interrupted, Mr. Hobbs attacked and was shot once, in the head and was declared dead upon the arrival of emergency services...”

 


	5. Amuse Bouche

** Dark Hearts **

_Author’s Note: Reminder, we’re going to depart more and more from canon-events or have events take place out of order for the show based on what cases I decide to include or cut or move around as fits with this story best._

_That said, Episode 2: Amuse Bouche is going to be one of those that gets changed and shuffled quite a bit due to previous changes already present in-fic, though a lot of dialogue is still present I’ve cut out other scenes entirely._

_I also went back and changed Harry’s sibling.  He has a little sister now instead of a brother…for reasons._

**Chapter Four: Amuse Bouche**

The applause that erupted at the end of his lecture to the best and brightest of Quantico on the Shrike made Will grimace.

Tasteless.

More, it was inappropriate, but given that this particular lecture included more than the latest crop of would-be agents from the Academy he couldn’t exactly protest or ask them to cease the way he could’ve in his own lecture hall to his students.

They tired of his non-response quickly or simply had other places to be rather than lauding the state-sanctioned death of a serial killer, standing and filing from the auditorium as Will turned to disconnecting and packing up his laptop from the projector with plans for a run with his newest stray, a handsome brindled mutt who _might_ be a mix of Golden Retriever and Irish Setter he’d decided to name Winston, though when the noise began to dissipate the sound of stylish heels on concrete drew his eyes from his bag.

Alana.

Just as beautiful – and out of his reach – with her dark brown hair lightly curled and wearing one of her unrelentingly-feminine outfits here in the still strongly-male-predominate FBI, as she’d ever been in the handful of years Will had known her.

Glancing up and beyond her, he noted that Jack was hanging back and talking lowly to Potter, though given that he knew HR would have dropped the terms of using Will for cases on the SAC’s desk that morning he doubted the man who typified _full-speed-ahead_ in everything he did would be far behind Alana.

Though a part of Will had to appreciate the maneuver from a disconnected perspective.

Letting Alana take the lead and soften him up before pouncing with whatever work-around-the-rules idea Jack had to manage a _particular_ requirement of Will’s Special Investigator status being fully actualized, especially after the Shrike case had ended with such a _bang_.

“Hi.”  Will gave a soft smile and a brief flicker of eye-contact reserved for those he genuinely liked.

Alana’s small answering smile acknowledged the special treatment.

“How are you, Will?”  She asked half as a friend and half as a psychologist with a teaching and consulting contract with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Will’s smile widened even as he huffed out a knowing laugh as Jack broke away from Potter when the younger agent – youngest member of the team in fact other than the tech analyst Bowman the BSU shared with another unit – turned to leave, only pausing a moment in the smooth motion to nod in absent greeting to his teammate awaiting his doom while talking to the luminous Dr. Alana Bloom.

“I don’t know at the moment, Alana.”  He arched a brow, gifting her with another flicker of eye contact before rather _obviously_ looking over her shoulder.

“That may change.”  Alana gave him an understanding look.  “I don’t want you to be ambushed…”

“Is this an ambush?”  Will asked, cocking his head a bit to the side as he leaned against the table on the auditorium dais in an all-too-familiar gesture that he often used to create a bit of distance in his classroom.

“Ambush is later. Immediately later, soon to now.”  She sighed, watching Will, her _friend_ , rather actively detach from her and track the movement of someone at her back.  Someone who frustrated her nearly as much as she respected him as an agent.  “When Jack arrives consider yourself ambushed.”

“Here’s Jack.”  Will gave her an understanding glance, knowing that her roles as both his friend and a consulting psychologist/professor there were times she had to follow Jack’s lead no matter how much it bothered her on a personal level and likely, given her ethics and compassionate nature a professional one as well.

Alana didn’t want to be cut out of Jack’s sphere of _useful_ people now that the SAC had brought in another consulting psychiatrist.

Understandable, even laudable, considering the senior agent’s habit of ignoring both compassion and ethics when it came to closing cases and improving his reputation in the halls of Quantico and the greater DC area in general.

“How was teaching class in a new space?”  Jack asked, having skipped the lecture in preference for paperwork.

Especially considering the bomb HR had dropped on his desk.

It seemed Will Graham wasn’t as easy to maneuver as he let others think.

Still, Jack would make use of that _gift_ of his, he’d just have to watch what was on official record to keep Purnell from jumping down his throat over his budget.

“I found the applause inappropriate.”  Will told him honestly.

Better than admitting that half the time of his lecture he’d seen a dead Garrett Jacob Hobbs staring at him from the blur of audience faces.

He’d pass on the padded room and the self-hug jacket, thanks.

“Review board doesn’t agree.”  Jack told him, tone edging more towards angry than stern.  “Seems between HR, the Union, and your legal counsel you’ve been cleared to return to the field pending a psych eval.”

SAC Jack Crawford _did not_ appreciate having his people do end-runs around him.

Appreciated it even _less_ when it involved more than one form of legal representation.

Who knew that a head-case like Graham had a shark of an attorney in his back pocket?  If it weren’t for the lawyer being on file for Graham dating back to when he started with the Bureau, Jack would’ve thought Potter had let him borrow his, given that they were cut from very much the same length of irritating cloth.  Both the lawyers _and_ the agents.  It was only after a bit of research that it dawned on Jack: of _course_ Graham had a damn lawyer.  He was a published author and of more than just peer-reviewed articles and monographs.

Jack didn’t like being blindsided.

It seemed only fair if he could repay the situation.

At least a little.

Will sent a put-upon look at Alana, knowing that life would be a lot more pleasant around the BSU for him if he let Jack play his little game, humored him at least a little.

“Are we starting now?”

“Your session wouldn’t be with me.”  Alana told him with a sigh in her words.

Jack smirked a little at Will, _knowing_ the profiler wasn’t going to like what came next given his more-than-obvious _issues_ with shrinks in general and one in particular given how they’d met.

“Hannibal Lecter might be a better fit. Your relationship's not as personal. But if you'd be more comfortable with Dr. Bloom…”

Will snorted.

“I’m not going to be comfortable with _anyone_ trying to crawl around in my head, Jack.”  Will told him, then reeled the SAC in from his little power play.  “But given that it was a suggestion made by my _own_ legal counsel that I undergo a psych eval to keep rumors down, especially with the circumstances of Potter’s collar record and my shooting of Hobbs, I’ve already made an appointment with Heimlich for later in the week.”

Heimlich, or Dr. Gregory “Greg” Heimlich, was a tenured professor at Harvard who flew down once a month on the agency’s dime to consult with a variety of units on profiles or do evaluations of both agents and suspects.

He wasn’t as compassionate as Alana or as incisive as Lecter, but all for the better as far as Will was concerned.

If someone had to crawl around in his attic spaces a bit, he’d rather it _not_ be someone he might see on a regular basis like Dr. Lecter or god-forbid Alana.

“You’ve also never killed anyone before, Will.”  Alana told him, all soft eyes and gentle tones, a stunning contrast to Jack’s dog-in-the-manger attitude.  “It’s a lot to digest.”

“I used to work homicide, Alana.”  Will sighed, slipping his bag onto his shoulder and tucking the ear of his glasses into the collar of his shirt.  “I have a stomach of cast-iron and I agreed to the eval, didn’t I?”  He rolled his eyes.  “An eval is one thing: therapy doesn’t work on me.”

With that, he nodded at Jack and smiled one last time at Alana then spun and left the auditorium, done with the conversation about his mental state.

_…_

_“Did you tell Graham to have his lawyer sit in on HR’s review of his field status?”_

The accusation _still_ burned at Harry’s state of mind hours after his new boss had cornered him following Will’s lecture on Hobbs, staying with him through paperwork, a coffee run, and his second culinary adventure at a restaurant Beverly had told him of on his way home.

Second if one didn’t count greasy containers of bog-standard Chinese takeout and the occasional on-the-go fast food run anyway.

It burned at him not because Harry wasn’t capable of advising someone to seek help for any number of matters – he completely was if he thought someone with potential was being railroaded.

But because for one, Jack-ass, _tone_.

And two, Will Graham was more than capable of taking care of himself as a single bullet to the brain of Hobbs _should_ have proven to everyone who knew him and thought him some broken little bird in need of help back into the safety of a nest.

Last, his irritation with his new boss was keeping Harry from enjoying the physical exertion of moving bags of garden soil, bending, digging, getting his hands dirty as he worked away at the grounds of his Alexandria home now that the last of the custom furniture had been delivered and the basement had been sealed and Harry had moved his more esoteric hobbies for a FBI Special Agent: namely, candling and potion-making down to the below ground space that had been nothing but cinderblock and poured concrete when he’d purchased his home.

The grounds would be the longest running job to fix up the place to suit him, and one that he’d been looking forward to ever since he’d clapped his eyes on the acreage that came with the smidge-too-big home.

Harry could’ve done without the butler’s pantry for one, let alone having both a formal dining room and a breakfast nook or a media center and game room or a pool with hot tub.

 _Half_ the space would have been more than enough.

As it stood however, he’d found himself settling in and spreading out into it, even going so far as to commission a dining table that could expand from seating eight to sixteen with a clever application of enchantments and engineering to make it a smooth motion instead of a matter of removing or adding heavy pieces of reclaimed teak into or out of position.

The part of him that would never leave the dark space beneath the stairs in sterile, staid Number Four Privet Drive had played with the expansion mechanism for a good ten minutes when it had been delivered the day after he returned – the final time – from Minnesota.

That same part had _reveled_ in having the funds to splash out on genuine hand-knotted rugs for his home and cashmere throws in solid lengths of jewel tones for the cream settee with hidden golden-silk stripes to add luster to the fabric and the custom furniture decorating every room of the house in reclaimed teak and solid English oak and American hickory, the last when he wanted to exactly match the hardwood floors instead of creating contrast against the slate tile flooring of the breakfast nook or the quartzite sparkling in the bathrooms.

Harry had survived it.

Survived _them_.

And lived to thrive in comfort.

For Harry, that, and that they _knew it_ , was better than any…closing measures he could have taken regarding their lifespans once the pair had come up for parole the year before.

Though he had, along with Siri and Kings, ensured that they’d served every. Last. Second. of their sentences.

Leaning over, Harry inhaled the scent of the just-budding lavender that he was planting in long rows along the back three property lines.  For the next year or two, it would look a little odd, two parallel lines of plants that didn’t connect each exactly two feet away from the next and staggered with the inner line being offset by a foot.  But.  Once it filled in he’d have borders six feet thick in evergreen foliage and bee-friendly flowerings around the back of his property.

It was the most tedious project for the grounds he had, given the size of them, but magic at least made having to take multiple trips a problem for someone else to deal with thanks to hidden charms on his wheelbarrow and cushioning charms to keep the plants stacked one flat atop the other from smushing.

But it was good for his mind, even as the irritation of Jack settled into a dull simmer, and gave him a week off of working out in his new basement-level home gym beside the satisfaction he found in doing the work on his own and exactly as he wanted it.

Sure, he could pay to have it done.

Considering what he’d paid for the custom furnishings in his house that was a foregone conclusion and his groundskeeper had offered to work on the project around maintaining the pool and the lawns and drive, plus the herb and veg garden that had quickly taken shape under Mr. Tomlin’s care but Harry’s directive while his wife Mrs. Tomlin, Harry’s new housekeeper – though neither were live-in – set to stocking the pantry and cupboards according to Harry’s request and helping her husband when she ran out of shopping or laundry or what-have-you to do as Harry did most of his own cooking and was tidy a bit by nature and a lot by the not-so-tender nurture of his unlamented relatives.

It was the same pride of place that had Harry installing his “advanced” bee-hives and contacting a local apiary for broods to encourage to nest in them as soon as swarm season begins.

“Advanced” as the version a magical person or being could buy harvested both honey and beeswax with targeted maintenance spells to vats or storage in his improved basement while the non-magical version made by the same company only allowed honey to be harvested without disturbing the bees through a special comb set-up that drained through a spigot at the back bottom of the hive.

One of Harry’s favorite parts of the hive – beyond the ease of harvest – was watching the hive through the clear back paneling, or the gatherer bees flying to and from the hive.

It was soothing.

Watching the patterns, listening to the hums, the routine of it soothed given his advanced senses from his Animagus form.

Thanks to his species he could hear car alarms miles away and having something as simple as the hum of an active bee-hive to listen to was a blessing of distraction.

The bees being the secondary reason for the large planting of lavender to go with the decorative beds in the front that he’d had Tomlin add bee-friendly plants to the useless-but-pretty foliage as well as the herbs, veg, and the warded-against-people potions ingredients.

He could do without either Mr. or Mrs. Tomlin poisoning themselves on accident.

Harry had soil covering his gloves and ratty old t-shirt and holey jeans – plus a decent helping of sweat from the warm first-week-of-May weather – when his phone chirped with an email notification.  Tugging off a glove and digging it out from his back pocket, he smiled as he saw it was from his baby sister Romina “Rom-Not-Mina” Celeste Black, all of seven and already running rings around her dads and Harry’s godfathers-cum-adoptive parents at technology.  Opening it up he gave an indulgent sigh and rolled his eyes before climbing to his feet.  The email was less informative and more demanding, not unexpected given the tantrum his baby sister had thrown when hearing that one of her favorite people – indeed someone of an age to be a father or uncle to her rather than a much-suffering and patient older brother – was moving to the United States to get away from…basically everything but his family.

Which considering Neville was often more brother than friend, included the Longbottoms, naturally.

Putting the tools and soil away and the plants under a stasis spell in the garage, he headed for the shower.

It looked like he was going to have company sooner than he’d expected.

As her majesty decreed.

With a few of his new co-workers, namely the forensic specialist Beverly Katz and their forensic specialist/coroner Dr. Price, nudging him about socializing with the team, and his family coming to see his new home – he figured that was an even split on Siri’s nosiness and Rom’s missing him with a dash of Remus’s protectiveness for flavor - perhaps a party was in order.

Good thing the research he’d done on some of his new acquaintances had yielded just _who_ to ask for a catering company recommendation.

Though as things turned out, his gardening hobby was going to come in handy for more than planting a thick lavender hedge and home-grown ingredients of varying kinds before his company ever arrived.

…

 _“Look, Will.  You and I both know that you’re not going to accept therapy, let alone with Heimlich of all people.  Please, won’t you_ consider _just having a conversation with Hannibal…?”_

Alana’s voicemail played through his mind as he stared at the neat rows of mounds rising above the forest topsoil, all covered in thriving kingdoms and clusters of mycelium.

Mushrooms.

Being fertilized by decay of human remains.

Will shared an incredulous _does-this-team-get-_ all _-the-weird-ones?_ glance with Harry as they felt as much as heard Jack come to a stop where his crack-pair of criminal catchers were watching crime scene pull bodies out of the strangest garden either man had ever seen.

And given who Harry was and where he’d gone to school post eleven-years-old, that was saying something.

Suddenly, to Will, having a conversation about the weird shit he could never discuss outside of his job except to his pack of dogs didn’t seem like such a bad thing after all.

Though…not with Heimlich, Alana was right about that.

That guy was as dry as Texas in July.

At least he wasn’t as pretentious as Chilton though, Will amended the thought as Jack cleared out the crime scene as best he could and Harry, after a nod at the profiler wandered off to talk to a couple techs and start gathering whatever it was he used to track killers.

He didn’t know of anyone who tried so hard to come across as successful and fail so spectacularly due to their own ego as _that_ walking sack of neuroses.

So, not Heimlich, not Alana, and definitely not Chilton.

Which as a hand tethered to a spike above ground grabbed hold of his leg as he started his reproduction, left him with only one real option since it took him longer than he’d like to admit for him to realize that the sensation was _reality_ , one of the victims was alive, then even he as comfortable with his own crazy as he was could stand.

…

“Jack thinks I need therapy.”  Was good William’s opening salvo after Hannibal had ushered him into his office.

It had been an interesting day already.

First a most intriguing request from his fellow predator roaming the halls of Quantico and now Will pacing his office and discussing therapy after being quite resistant to the idea of Hannibal, or anyone else for that matter, taking a peek into his fascinating mind.

Let alone crawling into his mental garret and rearranging furniture, as Alana had paraphrased at dinner a few nights previous.

Hannibal crossed to sit in his chair as Will paced, surveying the room and seeming to take a mental snapshot of every last detail with a negligent focus that spoke to his impressive memory.

“I'm not sure therapy will work on you.”  In that, Hannibal was being completely honest.  At least as far as conventional methodology was concerned at any rate.  “Stealing into other minds has taught you how to fortify your own.”

Will gave a little laugh even as he spotted something on Hannibal’s desk and tilted his head to take a better look, thinking he recognized the fine quality – expensive, really if one was to be blunt – cardstock vellum and teal copperplate printing.

“That’s what I said.”  He grinned over at Lecter, two conspirers against Jack – for the moment at least.

Hannibal debated his next words, choosing them with the same care and rigor he would a new wine or imported cheese, nodding in silent agreement when Will set one foot on the ladder leading up to the second-level balcony with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and glancing – winsomely though he was unaware of it – back at the finely-tailored person-suit observing him.

“What you need is a way out of dark places when Jack sends you there.”

The words visibly struck home as Will paused with his feet planted on the top rung of the ladder before finishing his ascent.

“Last time he sent me somewhere dark,” he admitted, keeping his back turned to the piercing brandy gaze of the other man.  “I brought something back.”

“The Copy-Cat?”  Hannibal tilted his head an infinitesimal amount to the side as Will turned his head in profile towards his watcher, watching in return from the corner of his eye.

Observing.

Always observing.

Hannibal wondered what happened when the pieces of a puzzle he didn’t know he was fitting together in the first place slammed home?

When those observations, conscious and not, point in a direction that his conscious mind couldn’t fathom?

Will Graham’s abilities were as prodigious as Jack had alluded, yes.

But even they could some in a distant second to the instincts of a born predator, and the more Hannibal did some observing of his own, the more he was convinced that the darkness that dwelled inside of good Will wasn’t entirely a case of an abyss looking back.

“In a way.”  Will finally allowed, though it was and wasn’t true.  “I keep seeing…”

“The things you are exposed to in the care of Agent Crawford would be difficult for the most unfeeling of humans to experience.”  Hannibal supplied after Will gave his attention once more to the spines of Hannibal’s collection, content to leave his full thought unsaid though he was certain it wasn’t unfinished in truth.

Simply unspoken.

“Will, the mirrors in your mind can reflect the best of yourself and not the worst of someone else.”  He concluded with an all-too-human sigh as the profiler shut-down.  “But not without help, battling intrusive thoughts takes work to build your defenses.  A withering rose trellis loses both thorns and beauty in time.  When was the last time you engaged in an activity you truly enjoy, outside of caring for your dogs?”

His non-patient frowned at that, though the lack of monetary exchange will not help Uncle Jack’s wish of gaining insight to Will outside of normal parameters given the NDA Hannibal agreed to sign in an echo of his arrangement with Agent Potter.

Jack had thought he was getting an inside look at extraordinary minds.

Instead, he got non-disclosure agreements and legal counsel dogging his steps.

There was a large part of Hannibal that would enjoy very much dining on Jack’s toned back muscles with their no-doubt excellent marbling that took a great deal of pleasure in Jack’s quarries this time turning out to be, once more, more predator than prey considering how long the SAC had been tracking Hannibal.

Will frowned, thinking then gave an understanding nod and a grimace though he didn’t supply the actual amount of time that had passed, Hannibal would still venture a guess that it had been before Crawford came knocking at the Professor’s door.

Changing the subject:

“You got an invite too?”  Will asked, turning to lean on the balcony railing and looking down at both calm Lecter and his desk which had drawings and works in progress stacked neatly at one corner and a heavy vellum envelope with its anachronistic broken wax seal and charming Old-World nostalgia set to one side.  Both of them were that way, though in very different ways Will thought: Potter and Lecter.

Modern men with twists of anachronism and Old-World nostalgia to go with their blue-blooded luxuries and aristocratic bones.

“Indeed.”  Hannibal nodded his head slightly to the side as he closed his notebook and rose to his feet to hold up the stationary in question.  It quite met with his approval, though the sealing wax was a touch of whimsy he himself would not have adopted, still it was a charming stylistic choice that he would venture had succeeded in disarming all but himself and perhaps those incapable of being charmed in such a way due to their own biases such as young Mr. Zeller from Hannibal’s brief interactions with the man and his not-as-hidden-as-he-thought curl of a lip at Hannibal’s bespoke suits and Italian shoes.  “Our Agent Potter was in need of a catering referral and had been told of my culinary proclivities.”  At least the ones that were common knowledge.  “I was pleased to oblige him with a referral though I was not expecting an invitation in turn.”

“Harry’s not much of a fan of being psychoanalyzed himself.”  Will commented on the underlying reasoning behind why Hannibal thought he might be excluded from a party he helped – even in a small way such as a referral – plan.  “I wouldn’t take it to heart, he’s not exactly jumping up and down to socialize with Alana either.”

Though to his knowledge Alana had received an invitation as had all the agents or consultants involved with the BSU.

Networking, Will supposed.

The socially-correct thing to do would be attend given that he was on good-if-new terms with Harry.

And if Hannibal had recommended the caterer then if they were anything like the man himself the food would be worth the drive up to Alexandria in a couple weeks.

Besides, at least Harry had good taste in booze which should help deaden his anxiety if things don’t go well at all.

“What did you see?”  Hannibal asked, standing and leaning against his desk as he made eye contact with Will, who for once – maybe because of the short conversational break or due to the distance – didn’t look immediately away.  “Out in the field?”

Will held the bannister piping in his fists, lowering his head as he stood bent over in a bow.

He couldn’t look at that whole, sane, sophisticated man and talk about his fun new levels of crazy.

He just couldn’t.

“Hobbs.”

“An association?”  My my, now wasn’t that interesting, Hannibal thought.  He’d assumed that he couldn’t get more interested in the sweet empath.  It was a good thing that – some of the time – Hannibal didn’t mind being proven wrong.

“A hallucination.”  Will exhaled a heavy breath, as if simply saying it out in the open lifted a weight off his lungs.  “I saw him lying there…”  He lifted his eyes and stared back down at Lecter.  “In somebody else’s grave.”

“Did you tell the others what you saw?”  Did you tell Jack, sweet Will?  Potter?

“No.”

Hannibal was glad of the distance between them at the moment.

It meant he didn’t have to conceal the gleeful triumph in his gaze only restrain the smirk from his lips.

“It's stress. Not worth reporting.”  Hannibal told him with a sigh and an understanding look.  “The mechanism that distinguishes conscious perceptions from internal perceptions misfired. You displaced the victim of another killer's crime with what could arguably be considered your victim.”

And there was the sting in the tail, though Will was too shaken up at the moment to hear it for what it was.

Manipulation by a master.

Little pieces, little suggestions, all building blocks towards either his next failure to be purged or his next masterpiece to be savored.

Though for perhaps the first time in his life since Mischa or Murasaki he found himself invested in which way good Will fell…as well as having to contend with another who might stand a chance at playing with a level of mastery to near-equal Hannibal’s own in a handsome face and form hiding a dark heart that might rival his own for ferocity if not disdain.

Will made a little scoffing sound that was tinged in equal measure by rue and bitterness.

“I don’t consider Hobbs my victim.”  He corrected, standing straight and letting loose of the railing, moving in even strides towards the ladder as Lecter watched him with brandy-soaked irises.

“What do you consider him?”

“Dead.”  Will told him without hesitation or equivocation, eyes locking for a brief, stern second before he spun – a surprisingly graceful and athletic movement to the eyes of his watcher – and started his descent.

Hannibal appreciated both the bluntness of his answer and the grace of his movement – though for very different reasons.

Though there were still more answers to be had with Will’s new symptom to explore.

“Is it harder imagining the thrill somebody else feels killing now that you've done it yourself?”

“Yes.”  Will said just as boldly as before, though he paused on the last step in a reverse-mirroring of his earlier hesitation at another of Hannibal’s words, facing bookshelves and objects d’ arte rather than the incisive gaze that half the time he feared might pierce him far too deep for his own comfort.

Liking the honesty, Hannibal let him off the hook of further probing into Will’s mind in preference to explore the latest killer sharing their work and mind and even soul with the empath.

“The arms.”  Hannibal pushed off his desk and prowled closer to Will, coming into his space as they made that ephemeral switch between doctor/patient and friendly professionals.  “Why did he leave them exposed? To hold their hands? Feel the life leaving their body?”

Will snorted, rolling his eyes and taking off his glasses to polish the plain glass lenses on his worn cotton broadcloth shirt.

“Too esoteric for someone who took the time to bury his victims in a straight line.”  He explained the cause of his amusement as he set his glasses back into place.  “He’s too practical for that.”

“He was cultivating them?”  Hannibal tilted his head, interested on more than one level by that.

“He was keeping them alive.”  Will elaborated.  “Feeding them intravenously.”

Hannibal continued the discourse, fascinated as he watched wheels churn and ideas click through Will’s tangled mind of mirrors.

“Your farmer let his crops die, save for the one that didn't.”  He pointed out.

“The one that _didn’t_ died on the way to the hospital.”  Will said absently, his eyes focused on something no one else could see as facts and ideas and off-hand commentary snapped into place.  “They weren't crops. They were the fertilizer. The bodies were covered in fungus.”  _That_ , suddenly, Will knew was the whole point…he just still didn’t know _why_ or _how_ , either of which would actually help him catch the fungi gardener.

“Mycelium kill forests over and over, building deeper soil to grow larger and larger trees.”  Hannibal suggested, retaking his seat as he watched Will move with absent routine through gathering his jacket though he also didn’t move to leave just yet.  Infuriating to have that keen mind focused elsewhere and yet riveting to watch as Will moved through the busy steams of that keen mind as he tracked his newest target.

Will frowned, seeming to chew and taste his words as they each fell from his lips.

“If it were just about the soil, why bother keeping the victims alive?”  He posed the question more to himself as he did Lecter.

Now that, Hannibal actually had a decent hypothesis for.

More, he didn’t desire to hold it back.

Will was worth baring his true thoughts when Hannibal could afford the luxury.

“The structure of a fungus mirrors that of the human brain.”  Hannibal paused for just a fraction for drama.  “An intricate web of connections.”

His companion muses on that a moment as he moved across the office away from the patient entrance where his coat had hung – some awful green hunter’s jacket that was more than comfortably worn – towards the private exit.

“Maybe he admires their ability to connect in ways humans can’t?”  Will suggested, finding it not out of place in the corner of his mind currently occupied with his gardener.

“Yours can.”  Was Hannibal’s final rejoinder as Will left, barely hearing his companion’s response as he moved to the incoming door to greet his newest patient – one with vibrant red corkscrew curls.

“Not physically.”  Will rolled his vivid sea-blue eyes at the whimsy, even knowing that Hannibal couldn’t see the gesture.  “Not with reciprocity.”

…

Issues of motive were set aside the next day in the BSU lab in favor of those of toxicology and fungal growth, Harry working away at his ever-present laptop as the sounds of the lab and the discourse of the analysts and Will filled the space.  He had a firm grasp on lab procedure, could run some tests if needed or under direction, but that wasn’t his specialty the way it was Beverly, Zeller, Dr. Price or even Will with his Masters in Forensic Anthropology.

Harry’s official Masters degree from Oxford was in Finance in fact, with his undergrad work completed in the fields in Forensic Accounting, Computer Forensics, and a minor in Abnormal Psychology, all which had helped in ways great and small in tracking the movements of Tom’s Death Eaters in his work and more in keeping himself off of the irritating Forbes 500 list every year to maintain his privacy.

As with Hobbs, Harry stepped back and let the stars of the lab shine in their ways and tracked their gardener in his own, though he wasn’t without a firm understanding of the hard sciences that were brought to bear in a crime lab.

He just didn’t see the point when his particular skill set was much more effective in the hunt in other ways.

As a bonus, there were no need for accouterments such as goggles and splash shield over in his little corner of the lab with his laptop and open files reviewing the preliminary lab results from their uprooted mushroom farm.

Today’s objective for the forensic team: the unfortunate soul who scared Will half out of his wits in his last gasp for life.

“What has he been soaking in?”  Will asked, as they examined the body that had been brought over from the ER that had received the fragrant – and horrifying – corpse that had grown a forest of fungi in his own flesh.

“A highly concentrated mixture of hardwoods, shredded newspaper, and pig poop.”  Dr. Jimmy Price answered with his irreverent good-cheer despite standing over one of the strangest bodies he’d ever had on his table.  “Perfect for growing mushrooms and other fungi.”

“Ah.”  Zeller held up a finger.  “But it wasn’t the mushrooms that killed him.  Toxicology confirmed: they all died of kidney failure.”  He revealed while simultaneously covering the body, joining its fellows under draping white sheets lined up in an eerie echo of the forest ecosystem they’d been torn from.

Beverly arrived as Will and the other forensic specialists were peeling out of their safety gear, Harry greeting her with a smile and a nod before dropping his gaze back to his computer screen.

There was something about that.

The combination of keeping the victims alive while they inevitably died of kidney failure that scratched at his brain.

Beverly had a fist-full of the catheter bags recovered from the scene in one hand and a computer print-out in the other.

“Dextrose in all the catheters. He probably used some kind of dialysis or peristaltic to pump fluids after the circulatory systems broke down.”  She announced as she plopped the read-out on Harry’s table and returned the catheters to their appropriate evidence bags.

“Force-feeding them sugar water.”  Will blinked, pieces of the puzzle rattling around in his brain and beginning to take shape as Harry looked up, eyes narrowing at Bev’s words, something pinging for him too.

Though whether it was the same thought or not remained to be seen.

“Mushrooms, all fungi really, feast off of sugar water.”  Harry mused, fingers tapping slowly on the table.

Jimmy nodded, sending a bright smile at the quiet special agent who’d deigned to join them down in the labs rather than sticking to his office like many SAs and SSAs did, spring-boarding off the statement.

“They crave it.  As much as a mushroom can crave anything.”

“So do recovering alcoholics.”  Zeller noted, leaning on one of the equipment tables, then looked over at Jimmy a little sheepishly.  “Don’t take that personally.”

“Oh, I’m not _recovering_.”  Jimmy sassed back with a smirk at his younger protégé.

“Alcoholics are too unpredictable for an unsub like this.”  Harry shook his head with a sigh.  “He’s regimented and ordered.  There’s too much out of his control in that sort of victim profile, besides which,” he waved towards the laptop.  “Not even a hint that any of the ID’d vics had a drinking problem.”

“No,” Will tilted his head to the side in thought as things started to slide into place.  “But alcoholics aren’t the only sector of the population with compromised endocrine systems.”  Then, _click_.  “They all died of kidney failure?  Death by diabetic ketoacidosis.”

Bev cocked an eyebrow at Zeller.  “Did you know they were diabetics?”

“We don’t know they’re diabetics.”  Zeller refuted.

“Yes we do.”  Harry shot him down in unison with Will, though in the latter’s case it was his empathy working and not magically-enhanced computer forensics.

“They were diabetics.”  Will insisted.  “He induces a coma and puts them in the ground: that’s why no restraints, no defense wounds on the victims.”

“They don’t fight because they can’t fight and it gives the unsub total control over them.”  Harry pursed his lips, thinking.  It fit, and he said so.

More, it gave him a direction to point his own portion of the investigation even as Will pointed the forensics team down the same avenue Harry was pointing his digging through the victims’ backgrounds for the intersection with the unsub.

“How is he inducing the diabetic comas?”  Bev asked, loving watching Will’s mind work, though Harry’s wasn’t shabby either and had already taken the same turn as Will’s if his sudden flurry of typing is any sign.

“He changes their medication.”  Will explained, feeling the rush of a puzzle being solved.  “He's a doctor or a pharmacist or works somewhere in medical services.”

All careers where it gave someone seeking such a level of control over others that their unsub typified in his modus operandi.

Even though his motive, from what he’d parsed through with Dr. Lecter, had nothing at all to do with _control_.

“He buries them, feeds them sugar to keep them alive long enough for the circulatory systems to soak it up.”  Bev outlined the m.o. in broad but clean strokes, more than a little impressed with Will and exasperated at their newest crazy perpetrator.

“To feed the mushrooms.”  Jimmy wrinkled his nose.  It was a bit odd even for him.

“We dug up his mushroom garden.”  Zeller blanched a bit, put off portobellas for a good long while after this.

“He’s going to need to start another one.”  Will shook his head, pressing one hand to his temple as his headache flared now that the rash of connections and evidence had slowed.  He pulled out his ever-present aspirin bottle, downing two dry even as Bev eyed him in concern, as well as Harry though he couldn’t see it with the SA behind him in his out of the way corner of the lab.

Harry wasn’t certain those headaches of Will’s were normal.

He only hoped his intriguing new partner would come to his dinner party…where there would be plenty of opportunities to try another diagnostic or even lace his drink with a healing draught that would be much more effective than basic aspirin.

After all, he just found the lovely and fascinating Will Graham.

It wouldn’t do to lose him to something as plebian as a tumor or a migraine at the wrong moment or gods-forbid a stroke.

…

After that, between Harry’s computer skills and Jack’s doggedness, they had a solid lead within days.

Will rode with Jack to an average, plain big-chain pharmacy, stepping out onto the pavement as plain-clothes moved out with a nod from the SAC, barely locking eyes for a split-second on his new “partner” the paperwork having been made official through HR the day before, Harry’s long fall of black hair pulled back in a tail and his green eyes gleaming as he unholstered his Glock and moved around the back, taking up position at the employee entrance/exit as other agents watched the delivery access doors as Jack gave Will the rundown on what Harry had unearthed.

“Gretchen Speck.”  Jack all but growled the name.  “The eighth diabetic customer of the chain to disappear after filling an insulin prescription, second from this exact location, reported missing yesterday evening.”

Will arched a brow.

That was quick work on a pattern, even for someone who seems to excel at it as much as Harry did.

“The other seven?”

“All over the county. One pharmacist has been all over the county, too.”  He said portentously.

“A floater.”  Will noted.  It fit, though as with any new partnership he would continue to rely on his own analysis until he was certain of Harry’s.

Self-reliance being the bane of many in law enforcement, something he’d noticed Harry was guilty of as well, though he tended to hide it better than Will.

Given the dark stillness and shadows he still saw sometimes in Harry’s eyes, he wondered how good the other man was at building mental forts.

Extremely, he would guess.

It wasn’t as if the method of loci was a _new_ idea by any measure.

And if anyone would be familiar with it, Will would think that highly intelligent men given a classical education such as both Harry and Hannibal, they would be, a thought that fit with the quietness he tended to experience around them.

“Floater's floating right here.”  Jack smirked viciously.  “Still logged into his workstation according to Potter’s digging.”

“Still feeling smug and greedy over your new acquisition spree?”  Will asked idly, already knowing the answer.

“Oh, you have _no_ idea.”  Jack told him, good-humor restored with an upcoming collar and another quickly-closed case to add to his record.  Lawyer-shaped baggage or not, Potter and Graham were shaping up to be the best investment he’d made in a team in years.

They ignored the plain-clothes agents herding the customers and general staff out the front of the building, instead heading straight for the pharmacy where they saw six pharmacists or techs all gathered by the first-wave of agents into the building.

Jack held up his badge for their view.

“Everyone, hands in the air.  I am Supervisory Special Agent Jack Crawford with the FBI.”  He ordered the group.  “Which of you is Eldon Stammets?”

A bland middle-aged man in a standard white-coat emblazoned with “Pharmacy Manager” spoke up.

“What’s happening?”

“One of your customers didn't return home last night after picking up a prescription here yesterday, filled by Eldon Stammets.”  Jack explained succinctly.  “We have reason to believe he abducted her.”

One of the female pharmacists gasped.

“He was just here.”  She stuttered in shock.  “Just now.”

Jack nodded towards the waiting agents, ordering them to fan out and locate Stammets as Will observed the pharmacy and the rounded-up pharmacists.

“Is his car still in the parking lot?”

…

Crowbar in hand collected from one of the SUV’s, Will with Jack on his heels ran for the darkening parking lot, only to come to a stop at the sight that met their eyes: a rather worse-for-the-wear Stammets cuffed belly-down on the pavement with a hot-eyed Harry standing over him.

Will didn’t need his party trick to figure out what had happened.

Stammets had spooked and tried to leg it only to come up against not an unguarded door but a pissed-off certified monster-catcher who was legendary for playing less-than-nice with known perps.

If there was a _question_ of guilt, such as with Mrs. Hobbs, Harry could play as nice as any cop on the hunt.

But seeing him now, standing over Stammets like a wrathful Hades, ebony hair spilling down his back and barked knuckles, gun trained on the bound form, Will had little doubt that Harry’s love of the hunt was magnified by the takedown, not diminished by it like some LEO’s who lived for the puzzle and not the finish.

A nod was all they had to exchange, Harry not taking his eyes off of Stammets for a moment otherwise.

Not as Will smashed open the perp’s driver-side window.

Not when he popped the trunk to the ripe smell of soil and pig shit.

Not when Will frantically dug Gretchen Speck out of that claustrophobic space or Jack called for the EMTs.

Special Agent Harry Potter, FBI, didn’t take his lethal gaze off of Stammets until he’d been loaded up into the back of a deputy’s car on his way to booking.

Looking into that burning emerald gaze – just for a moment – Will saw the predator that dwelled beneath the still darkness and shadows.

And strangely…he wasn’t afraid.

He still didn’t quite understand who Harry was, but he was somehow comforted with the look of the monster that dwelled within the man that it wasn’t one he’d have to worry about hunting anytime soon.

…

_Author’s Note 2: I know a lot of my fellow Fannibals from my FB page were looking forward to the party, but that comes next chapter.  Had to get the case finished first, given that it wasn’t one of the more involved ones and was more window-dressing than anything in the series._


	6. 19 Alpine Drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner Party Intro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still traveling and focusing more on my original fiction so I hope you all enjoy this update :D
> 
> If you'd like to learn more about either my trip or my original works, you can find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sifabrams/

** Dark Hearts **

_I’ve gone back and done a few edits to previous chapters, most notably a small edition to Chapter Two: Folie a Deux, so you might want to re-read it to understand something that happens later in this chapter._

**Chapter Five: 19 Alpine Drive**

Once Stammets had been cuffed-and-stuffed, Harry’s Glock back in the holster, the trio of Jack, Harry, and Will turned at the sound of hurrying footsteps to see a jogging-their-way Jimmy Price.

“Jack.”  The coroner/forensic specialist called out, waving one arm back towards the pharmacy.  “We just checked the browser history on Stammets’ work station, trying to figure out what spooked him.”

Jack took a heavy bracing breath, one hand rising to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Am I going to want to hear this?”  He asked, even as the high of making a collar faded in the oncoming tide of anxious – and pissed – energy coming off of Jimmy that he didn’t need to be Will to feel for himself.

“No.”  Jimmy chewed at his lip.  “And yes.”  His eyes darted against his will to, well, _Will_ and Harry where they were standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder beside the SAC.  “But mostly no.”

It was with a malingering sense of dread that the trio reentered the pharmacy and joined Beverly where she was hunched over a computer screen with a scowl firmly fixed on her delicate features, Zeller twitching anxiously behind her.

Spying her boss, Beverly explained: “Tattlecrime.com.”  Then went on to narrate the piece that the new arrivals could see was illustrated by a picture of Harry and Will standing together at the forest crime scene, just before Will started his reconstruction.

““The FBI isn’t just hunting psychopaths, they’re head-hunting them, too, offering competitive pay and benefits in the hopes of using a dynamic duo of a demented mind and a legendary blood-lust to catch an-” She broke off at Will’s sudden pallor, the blood draining from his face and the stark rage on Harry’s as his hand snapped to his pocket and whipped out a cellphone, the Englishman stepping away even as he dialed.  “She goes into a lot of detail, Jack.”  Beverly summed up, even as Harry hissed into his phone and Jack glowered, Will looking knocked for six, winded by the article.  “This is a serious breech.”

Not just of standard privacy and investigation protocol for the Bureau but also of the NDA’s _everyone_ from Section Chief Erin Strauss on down to the cleaning lady had had to sign for the FBI to bring Harry on board.

Which was, she was 99% certain, the cause of the phone call as she heard the last snippet before Harry slammed his phone back into his pocket: “ _Yes, Tattlecrime.com.  Sic ‘em.”_

Ouch.

Bev winced, familiar from Jack’s grousing over the hoops Harry’s lawyers had set up for his contract.

Hoops that included the NDA that someone had violated.

“Son of a _bitch_.”  Jack cursed as Harry all-but-breathed fire as he strode from the pharmacy, Will not far behind him.

…

In the week and a half between the capture of Eldon Stammets and Harry’s housewarming party, Freddie Lounds had an awful time courtesy of having bitten off more than she – or her sleeze of a lawyer – could handle in publishing an article that took potshots at a British Lord instead of her usual flavor law enforcement officers.

Harry’s lawyers weren’t the normal FBI or local LEO pitbulls that she was used to and having the cop who’d lost his job thanks to her manipulations give statements and depositions to help the case which involved libel, misrepresentation of both herself and facts, obstruction of justice, and included a fun little cease-and-desist regarding both Black and Graham, she was lucky to come out at the end of the lawsuit with her laptop, car, and camera intact let alone anything else.

Jack, for once, was more than happy to let someone else deal with the unscrupulous Ms. Lounds and like most law enforcement that had ever been eviscerated by her in the court of public opinion more than entertained as much of the case played out just as much on prime-time news coverage thanks to the scandal as he was over her having to take a break from smearing the FBI with anything she could make stick.

He was so happy in fact, and barring an emergent case, that he easily signed off on his new Special Agent to take some of the comp time he’d already racked up on his first two major cases to spend time with his visiting friends and family before the party he was looking forward to attending that Saturday.

Other than cheap take-out in the lab or work discussions in random fast-food joints, his team didn’t have many chances to socialize, Harry’s party an excellent opportunity to get a better idea of the two new variables outside of work.

Packed up and ready to take off for his long weekend, Harry first swung by a classroom he knew from his first meeting – via bathroom – with Will Graham as he’d followed Jack in tracking the profiler down.

Peeking into Will’s office at the back of the classroom, Harry smiled – hiding his concern at the sight of a rundown Will who between the shadows under his eyes and the mottling of sweat on his brow and around his hairline clearly still wasn’t well – when sea-blue eyes met his gaze for a split second before diverting to looking around the proximity of his chin.

“Hey Harry.”  Will greeted him softly, coughing just a little at his suddenly-dry throat at the sight of that gentle smile leveled his way by the long-haired man.  “What’s up?”

“I, ah,” Harry shuffled a bit in place, more out of a wish to put Will at ease than any discomfort.  “I wanted to double check that you’re still coming on Saturday.”  He shot a rueful grin at the other agent when his eyes shot up in surprise before dragging back down, this time to the hollow of this throat.  “I know it’s not really your kind of thing.”

“Yeah,” Will blew out a breath, scrubbing at the back of his head a second.  “I was planning on it.”

“That’s good.”  Harry grinned brightly.  “And I wanted to let you know that if you’d feel more comfortable bringing one of your dogs with you, that’s completely okay.”

This time Will’s gaze flashed to Harry’s and locked, surprised embarrassment written all over his face.

“I know you’ve never been diagnosed or anything Will.”  Harry told him.  “And I’m really not trying to upset you or seem like I’m prying.  I’m just…offering.”  He shrugged, a wordless _no big deal_.  “I have a pet of my own and my little sister is coming, a bit more hazardous a creature than a dog or a dozen, so my place is pretty animal friendly.”

“Did you…”  Will choked off a laugh.  “Did you just compare your sister to a domesticated animal?”

“You haven’t met Rom.”  Harry arched a brow.  “She’s seven years of sass wrapped in a too-cute package that my dads let get away with everything short of murder.  Yes, I compare her to animals and will continue to do so until she reaches an age of stability…like her seventies.  Trust me, between my Hedwig, my sister, and whichever dog you decide to bring, the dog will be the least of an issue.”

“What kind of pet is Hedwig?”  Will asked, leaning forward in clear interest even as his gaze flittered away from Harry’s amused green eyes.  “You’ve mentioned her but never said.”

“She’s a Snowy Owl.”  Harry laughed at the surprise that once more took over Will’s face.  “Not a normal pet, I know, but my secondary school taught falconry and she kinda…picked me when I was eleven.”

“Wow.”  Will frowned thinking.  “That’s pretty elderly for an owl, isn’t it?”

“It is.”  Harry sighed.  “But I don’t like to think about it and I try to pamper her as much as possible since I know she’s getting to the point of living on borrowed time now.”

“I’m sorry.”  Will told him, sympathizing.  He’d lost several dogs over the years and it never got any better, even after they’d lived a nice long life.  “And I’ll give serious thought to bringing one of my pack with me to dinner.”  He nibbled at his teeth then decided one borderline-painful confidence deserved another.  “I’ve never gone through the steps to get official ESA paperwork and authorization done.”

Harry considered that then leapt right over the invisible line of tact.

“You might want to consider it now if you’re going to be in the field more, Will.”  Harry said bluntly.  “I don’t have to have your gift or be a shrink to see that you could use a bit of extra comfort when you go mentally spelunking into a crime scene.”  He held up his hands when Will’s shoulders squared up, preparing to spit out something likely very _rude_ in response to Harry’s unsolicited advice, turning and leaving the office before Will could bite his head off.

He may not have Will’s gift after all, but he didn’t need it to recognize an oncoming tirade either and he wanted Will to think about what he said not tying himself in knots over whatever he would say next to Harry.

“Just think about it Will.”

And despite himself, Will did all through his last class of the week, grading papers, and running and fishing with his pack, little else occupying his mind with no appointment with Dr. Lecter that week due to the lack of crime-inflicted trauma but Harry’s well-meaning – if horribly intrusive – suggestion.

…

Harry was found wrist-deep in dirt when his family arrived from London, nearly bowled over by the target-locked-missile that was his little sister as he knelt down in the dirt towards the back of his property adding dittany plantings to a small bed that contained his non-poisonous potions ingredients.

Will’s headaches were a genuine concern, especially when cobbled together with the seeming lack of sleep and low-grade fevers he was experiencing and brushing off.

He’d just found Will Graham.

He wasn’t about to let him go or lose him to an ailment that no one else noticed or cared about when he still wasn’t certain how deep this new trend of caring about someone he could neither predict nor as-yet trust.

Sirius, Remus, and Romina would be staying in his new guest rooms for three nights until they returned to London on Sunday morning or afternoon, which should help him from obsessing over what could be wrong with Will until the party when he would hopefully get an answer given that neither man objected to a sly spell here or there and might be able to tag Will and Dr. Lecter with diagnostics that would finally answer the questions of what was wrong with Will and what _was_ Dr. Lecter.

“This is quite the place, pup.”  Sirius commented as he and his husband strolled over to where their daughter – conceived through creating a blank egg and fertilizing it with both their DNA, then carried by a surrogate – had jumped onto her brother’s back and was clinging like a monkey and chattering in his ear as Harry resolutely ignored her to finish his planting before deigning to tussle with the little monster.  “The guest rooms are nice, the whole place is done up really well.”

“Self-defense.”  Harry claimed, smiling up at them as he tucked Rom’s feet into his sides as he stood, cleaning up the gardening supplied with a click of his fingers then banishing them back to their spots with another, a wave of his hand cleaning up the dirt on himself, keeping from leaving dirty smudges on Rom’s jeans as he steadied her.  “Had to learn how to decorate or the Kensington flat would’ve been all Gryffindor red-and-gold with the occasional bit of brown thrown in.”

“Hey, cub.”  Remus pulled him into a deep hug before passing him off to his husband to repeat the gesture with Siri as Romina refused to be moved from where she’d burrowed into her brother’s back.  “Looking pretty good, new job going all right?”  He frowned, not wanting to mention the article that had gotten picked up in the U.K. given that it referenced one of their favorite lords/punching bags before getting pulled with the lawsuit Harry’s lawyers had unleashed.

“Fine.”  Harry shrugged.  “Law enforcement is pretty much the same everywhere, just the faces change.”

An insistent tug at Harry’s ponytail had him reaching back to poke at a ticklish side, a wordless reminder that she had to share him with their parents, though he’d have to devote time to her or she’d be impossible come the party.

Sirius snorted.  “Isn’t that the truth.”  He shook his head, then snapped his daughter up from her spot clinging to her brother, hanging her upside down as she squealed then tossing her back to Harry for the other man to catch and spin around in circles as she cheered him on.

“The move was good for him.”  Remus observed as they watched the two run around the backyard, Romina chasing Harry with Hedwig dive-bombing them, happy whoops and shrieks filling the air.

“Yes.”  Sirius smiled, pressing a kiss into one scruffy cheek.  “Yes it was.”

Then he was down on all fours, barking and loping across the lawn as Padfoot to join the ruckus, Remus shaking his head with a laugh as he wandered over to the lanai seating to watch everything he loved in the world playing in the wide yard over a tumbler of Harry’s fabulous Scotch.

…

Will wasn’t certain he’d expected to find when he rang the doorbell at Number 19 Alpine Drive in Alexandria that Saturday at just-shy of four o’clock – a full half-hour early, _quite rude_ Hannibal would think – with a calm Trigger, his mostly-white shepherd mix sitting calmly at his left side.

Winston was probably his best bet for an actual ESA dog if he decided to take up that step – a step that he’d considered off and on since he’d figured out that a support animal would help his particular issues but had always seemed a bit like _giving in_ to the fact that he had quantifiable issues – but he was still his newest member of the pack and Will didn’t want to destabilize him this soon no matter how smart the retriever mix was.

ESA certification and training took long enough that Winston should be – if Will goes through with it – well settled before the mutt ever had to step one paw near Quantico let alone a crime scene.

Trigger was one of his older dogs, right up there with Buster and Rosie for being found early in his occupation of the Wolf Trap house, and much calmer than any of his smaller dogs.

Shep was just too big to bring to someone’s house without forewarning, a mutt with maybe some mastiff in him, while his Aussie-mix Max had too much energy.

No, other than Winston, Trigger was his best bet.

However, Will could easily say, that he’d not expected to have the door opened by probably one of the handsomest older men he’d ever seen, including Hannibal, a man who had a certain resemblance to Harry…which didn’t really make sense given that he knew the younger agent was adopted.

Hell, anyone with the basic ability to Google knew that Harry Potter-Black was adopted, and anyone who worked with him knew he was just as partial to the Black name as he was the Potter, as he never corrected anyone when they dropped one or the other.

Even if he _had_ expected a handsome older man to open the door, a man who looked enough like Harry to be family of some kind, adoption aside, he thought he was allowed to be taken a bit aback given that said handsome older man had once made international headlines as a mass murderer, then again when the scandal broke regarding his unlawful incarceration and following exoneration, though as he saw from both the premature aging in lines on the face of who could be no one else than Sirius Black and the prison-yard tattoos on strong hands, unlawful imprisonment or not it would stay with Sirius Black all his life in ways both greater and smaller than having an FBI agent pause for a brief moment at the sight of him.

“Hello there.”  The infamous man smiled a wicked grin, silver-grey eyes flashing in amusement.  “You must be Will and guest.”

“Ah,” Will coughed, blushing a bit over being so _obvious_ to the man at being taken aback.  Others would have said _innocent_ man but given the quick-flash he’d gotten of Sirius Black he’d say that whoever or whatever he’d been before maximum security prison in the U.K., he wasn’t that anymore.  “Yes, yes I am.  This is Trigger.”

“Hello there Will and Trigger, please.”  Sirius stepped back and waved a hand grandly.  “Do come in.  Most of us are out on the lanai to keep from being underfoot while the caterers work their magic and the other guests arrive.”

“Jack and some of the others might be late.”  Will told him, more for something to contribute than anything else as the older man held out his hand for his jacket and Will handed it over, the former prisoner tucking it away in the foyer closet before leading him back towards the aforementioned lanai, his nose and Trigger’s ear-pricked glance towards the kitchen giving credence to the buzz of noise and action taking place just on the other side of the wall.  Then they cleared the hallway into the family room leading out onto what had to be the lanai given the wide-open French doors and Will didn’t worry about contributing at all or anything else as he took in the soaring ceilings, gleaming wood, and natural stonework.  “Accident on the interstate, northbound.”

For Will’s part he came east-to-west for most of his trip, so the accident didn’t bother him.

Sirius introduced him to the group on the lanai, a blur of faces and varying English accents, notably missing their host, before one of the two men – who he thought was Sirius’s husband and Harry’s other adoptive dad if he had the connection right – kindly told him:

“Harry had a last-minute emergency to deal with.”  Remus, that was it, and yes, Will decided, he was married to Black.  “He, Neville, and Romina are out there,” he waved his hand in the general direction of the massive backyard.  “Settling in Harry’s new brood.”

“Pull up a chair, Will.”  The remaining man told him, a man with deep ebony skin dressed in a brightly colored tunic with an earring who Will was certain was both Jack’s friend Kingsley and Harry’s former boss.  “Have some of these excellent appetizers.  We won’t bite.”

“Speak for yourself.”  His wife gave him a wicked smirk, Will thought her name was Sharon as he settled down onto the empty bench seat opposite the Black couple and beside a younger woman who was probably a friend of Harry’s.

“Don’t scare him, Sharon.”  Remus chided gently, Will taking him as perhaps the kindest man he’d ever met with the most hidden propensity for violence.  And that was aside from the vicious facial scarring.  “You can take your friend off-leash, Will.”  He assured him.  “If Harry’s place can withstand my husband your four-legged companion _can’t_ be any worse on the furniture.”

“Hey.”  Sirius objected in a total deadpan, making the other English people chuckle at a joke Will knew he was missing but also knew it wasn’t maliciously meant.  “I resemble that remark.”

Before Will could feel anymore like a fish out of water, a trio of forms – two in white smocks and carrying masks that he recognized from a documentary on beekeeping – crested a slight hill in the yard with the owl Harry had told him of flying overhead, a bit of the ever-tightening tension in his chest uncoiling at the sight of long black hair and the sound of a smoke-over-whiskey laugh.

“Ah,” Remus and Sirius shared an amused – and knowing – smile over Agent Graham’s head at the sudden flux in scent that carried to their canine-enhanced noses at the sight of the trio.  “There they are now.”

Taking in the bright smile and smoke-filled laughter coming his way, feeling hit with both-barrels of his daddy’s old shotgun at the sight, Will nodded silently, eyes wide.

“Puppy!”  The tiny terror – or so her brother would have him believe – squeled in a register not available to those having it double digits in age and made to bolt down the slight hill.  Only to be scruffed by the back collar of her overalls by said brother.

“I don’t _think so_ , Rom.”  Harry chuckled, hauling her up and over his shoulder in an impressive one-handed display of idle strength that had Will nearing a blush to go with his ogle and his dads arching twin knowing brows.  “It’s the hose for you, dirty one before you can pet my friend Will’s dog.”  Directing that as much towards Will, who gave a grateful nod, as it was Rom, Harry turned towards the garage and the spigot to be found there, Neville on his heels and waving a hello to the newest member of the dinner party.

“That’s my husband, Neville.”  The younger woman present offered.  “He’s Harry’s best-friend from school.”

Susan.  Will frowned for a fraction of a second as he struggled to place the name from the battery offered up by Sirius Black at his entrance.  Her name was Susan.

“I’m gathering Harry keeps bees?”  Will hazarded between the mention of a _brood_ that needed settling and the attire of the adult males who’d come from the backyard.  “In addition to having a falconry license.”  He added when the beautiful snowy, who indeed had markers of age on her shining feathers and amber gaze came to perch on the back of Remus’s chair.  “Interesting hobbies for a British Lord.”

“Not as uncommon as you might think.”  Sirius offered as he dropped into an indolent sprawl beside his husband now that his help wrangling guests wasn’t needed with Harry’s return from the depths of his property.  “At least half of the students at our alma mater,” he circled a finger in the air to encompass the English contingent.  “Took falconry and most of those end up keeping hawks, falcons, or owls after graduation.”

“Huh.”  Will scratched the stubble at his chin at that.  Damn five o’clock shadow.  “Never would’ve thought considering how tech-savvy Harry is.”

“That’s the degree work coming in.”  The man in question answered for himself as he joined the group from the house after a quick detour to redress himself and Rom in party-appropriate clothes: tailored dark-wash jeans with a pressed tailored white silk dress shirt open at the collar and his vintage Aston Martin golden cufflinks his waistcoat the same bottle green as the enamel on the cufflinks and bringing out the bold unapologetic green of his eyes, Rom tucked into a pair of stretchy-kid-friendly velvet swing trousers and matching black shoes her tunic top a rustic red that brought a pretty flush to her almond complexion.  If one was looking his black leather belt and shoes were a spot-on match and his burnished-gold belt buckle a ringer for the gleam at his wrists.

Sirius grinned into the whiskey handed over by his mate.

If nothing else he’d taught his godson how to appropriately peacock for a pretty prospect.

His boy’s outfit _screamed_ understated wealth in a way that wasn’t as flash-and-dash as the Alexandria address or his beloved Vanquish and custom BMW motorcycle.

“You can’t take computer forensics without having a thorough education in computers after all.”  Harry was saying while his friends, family, and Will took in the sight of him, Neville coming around from behind him to scoop Rom off his shoulder and plop her down on Sharon’s lap at a gimme gesture from the older woman.

“Touché.”  Will gave a barely-there smile at the information as Harry accepted a glass as well from Remus, the man having almost magical timing when it came to manning the bar it seemed.  “Far be it for me to suggest that computer forensics is hardly the sort of degree one would think about when it comes to the British aristocracy…”

“You’re cheeky with a glass of whiskey in hand, Will Graham.”  Harry laughed, shaking his head and enjoying the sweep of his hair across his silk-draped back.

“Twice is only a coincidence.”  Will shot back, Trigger’s warmth at his leg helping keep him grounded in the midst of a group that – excepting only the little girl – to a one seemed to have no problems blocking him out.  Interesting.  _Very_ interesting.  “You’re shy an instance for a pattern, Harry.”

“Touché.”  Harry tossed back, toasting him with his own glass before the ring of the doorbell had him excusing himself and leaving Will once more in the care of his few friends and family.

Though it seemed Romina had the situation well in hand as no sooner had Harry cleared the lanai door to return inside than the sound of shoes hitting the wood planking and pattering over towards Will – and more importantly Trigger – came to his ears.

…

Hannibal was pleased with himself – and more to the point his planning – that had Alana meeting him at his home before he drove them both to Harry Potter-Black’s new demesne as if they had done the reverse they may have been caught by the horrors of a traffic jam causing them to be rudely late to Harry’s dinner party as no doubt Jack and the others from Quantico were sure to be.

As it was, he pulled into the stately address of Nineteen Alpine Drive at precisely five minutes to the appointed time, allowing him to assist Alana up the flagstone walk with a gentlemanly proffered arm and ring the bell with his immaculate punctuality.

Another who knew him less well would have mistaken his smugly pleased countenance for genial but Alana _had_ known him for years and had cause to view the expression before, often during one of his own dinner parties at that.

However if the blatant amusement on her face that slid away once Hannibal pressed the bell was any sign she’d chosen to be charmed by it than irritated as another might be.

That oft-used ability to choose genial, mannerly behavior over pettiness was one of many reasons Alana Bloom had over time become one of his favored companions in Baltimore, though at least now both were well-established in their careers no vile or salacious rumors regarding their association reached his ears.

He’d quite enjoyed that particular gossip-monger’s liver as a vibrant paté when the taint of an inappropriate – and unethical – _affair_ had spread through Johns Hopkins when Hannibal was Alana’s mentor there.

It had had to wait, of course.

No inconveniently-convenient disappearances had ever marred Hannibal’s career.

Still, the liver like his revenge for the slight, had been quite delectable served with a distinct chill.

An arch of a brow was all the response Alana needed to her entertainment then they were focusing on their host who greeted them after swinging wide the elegantly-carved hardwood door.

No pretty but hardly-secure ornamental glass panes for Harry Potter-Black it seemed, a stylistic choice Hannibal could appreciate.

Much like those of Harry’s wardrobe, though the tailored designer-wear the agent – and British Lord, lest Hannibal forget – was sporting on this occasion was a cut above his normal wear at Quantico.  Not that Hannibal could blame him.  Bespoke silk shirts could be the devil to clean of blood let alone less common bodily fluids or those found in a laboratory and gold cufflinks made an excellent conductor of electric shock for someone who often worked with computers.

Even so, Hannibal would have to be dead or a Kinsey Zero to not be taken in by the picture the man made with his smart-casual couture and long fall of ebony hair surrounding gold-dusted skin and emerald eyes.

Alana’s slight blush that renewed at a glance from those inky-lashed eyes certainly seemed to agree with Hannibal’s assessment of Harry’s aesthetic appeal.

“Dr. Lecter, Dr. Bloom.”  Harry’s smile was as warm and welcoming as the rich-toned foyer framing him.  “Welcome to my home, please: won’t you come in?”


End file.
